


Welcome to Hale

by relenafanel, rlnerdgirl



Series: Welcome to Hale [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: BAMF!Stiles, Camping, Comedy, Creepy Derek Hale, F/M, Faked character death, Fright Night - Freeform, M/M, Murder Camp, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-31
Updated: 2012-10-31
Packaged: 2017-11-17 12:01:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/551329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/relenafanel/pseuds/relenafanel, https://archiveofourown.org/users/rlnerdgirl/pseuds/rlnerdgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“This is Laura Hale calling.  I have you booked at Lake Hale from September 16th - 18th, party of 6.  I can assure you that our groundskeeper is up to the task.  Previous visitors have reviewed his performance as being “suitably creepy” and “watch him, I think he really is a murderer.”  Scripts have been sent to the email addresses you provided. We recommend that you keep the details of your murder private, to ensure the impact the events have on the rest of your party.   If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact me.  I assure you, your friend won’t know what hit him.  Metaphorically, of course.  Welcome to Hale.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Welcome to Hale

**Author's Note:**

> This was coauthored by [RLNerdGirl](http://rlnerdgirl.tumblr.com/) and [RelenaFanel](http://relenafanel.tumblr.com/) over the span of 3 days for Halloween. 
> 
> It is a comedy. Kind of.
> 
> It is a tale of horror. Kind of.
> 
> It is a tale of intrigue and romance and suspense. Kind of.
> 
> Welcome to Hale. Enjoy your stay.

 

_Prologue:_

 

“This is Laura Hale calling.  I have you booked at Lake Hale from September 16th - 18th, party of 6.  I can assure you that our groundskeeper is up to the task.  Previous visitors have reviewed his performance as being “suitably creepy” and “watch him, I think he really is a murderer.”  Scripts have been sent to the email addresses you provided. We recommend that you keep the details of your murder private, to ensure the impact the events have on the rest of your party.   If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact me.  I assure you, your friend won’t know what hit him.  Metaphorically, of course.  Welcome to Hale.”

 

_Itinerary_

 

Friday

 

3PM: Approximate time of arrival.  Groundskeeper sighting through the trees.

3PM - 4PM: Getting settled in cabins. Mandatory Welcome meeting

4PM - 5PM: Tour of camp grounds

5PM - 6PM: Supper. Groundskeeper sighting through the window.

6PM - 8PM: Activities of your choice.  Stiles will go hiking. Groundskeeper sighting through trees.

8PM - 9PM: Fire-side in Lodge.  Laura will tell ghost stories.

10PM: Pelts from rabbit dinner left in front of Stiles’ cabin door

 

Saturday

8AM: Groundskeeper will leave a dead animal on Stiles’ towel while he showers

9AM - 12PM: Morning activities. Groundskeeper sightings throughout morning.

12PM - 1PM: Lunch. Groundskeeper walks past lodge bloodied.

1PM - 2PM: Suggested best swimming time. Groundskeeper appears at shoreline.

2PM - 5PM: Afternoon activities.

5PM - 6PM: Supper. Groundskeeper sharpening axe outside lodge.

6PM - 7PM: Post supper (dessert, reading, etc). Plant idea of exploring Hale house.

7PM - 2AM: Lydia, Jackson, Danny, Scott, Allison, Laura. Finale.

 

**_ Welcome to Hale _ **

 

Stiles has been looking forward to this for the past month, ever since Scott made the announcement. He hasn’t been camping in forever and the idea of doing a group trip, with cabins and a lake and the whole nine yards, makes him think back to their middle school summer camp days, filled with sun and laughter, canoe races and failed night raids on the girls’ cabins. Technically he has two discussions on Friday, but he doesn’t actually learn anything in either one of them and he kind of hates his TA’s, so any excuse to not show up is a good one in Stiles’ book.

 

Friday morning Stiles already has the jeep packed up. Lydia emailed out a list of everything each of them should bring, along with a smaller list of supplies the group could share, dividing it up so each person had to use the same amount of space and spend near the same amount of cash. Stiles got bug spray, suntan lotion, and two emergency rolls of toilet paper. The grounds are supposed to have bathrooms and everything, but Lydia’s a planner and while Stiles isn’t in love with her anymore he’s still a little terrified of her, especially when she turns to him to keep the sun from her skin and accuses him of giving her cancer if he doesn’t produce a bottle of sunblock. The trip is just two nights, so he has his small gym duffle and his sleeping bag, and he’s half expecting, half praying that’s all Allison and Scott have too, because it’s not like the jeep has all that much room in it. Jackson, Lydia, and Danny are driving up in Danny’s roommates SUV. Only Danny could convince someone to lend him their car for an entire weekend.

 

The drive is beautiful. It’s amazing how little time it takes to get out of the city, leaving Berkeley behind and entering the world of rural California, speeding their way through fields and crops and small towns that look like they would be more at home in the mid-west. When they hit the foothills and work their way up into the mountains Stiles feels a blanket of comfort and familiarity fall over him. It’s like being back home in Beacon Hills, but not, because the trees are just a little off and so is the smell, but in the end it’s all nature and fresh and good.

 

It’s a good thing Scott has written directions, because cell service ends an hour before they get to the grounds and Garmin Gabby fails them not much later. They’re good directions too, because the last road they turn on isn’t gravel and almost completely shrouded from sight by overgrown trees and shrubbery and Stiles is going to mention that to someone because, really, if they want business they should at least attempt to make it so people can find it. Like, maybe there should be a sign.

 

Twelve miles up the gravel road (now completely dirt and bumpy and wow Stiles is happy the jeep has four wheel drive) there’s a sign, and it makes Stiles seriously consider figuring out a way to turn around right then and there and drive away. It arches over the road, a large piece of wood that looks like, at some point, it was glossy and beautiful and welcoming, but now it’s splintered and dark with what might be burns, and chunks have rotted away. What’s left says, “Welcome to Hale,” and Stiles is having so many second thoughts about this.

 

“Scott...” He’s slowed the jeep down to a crawl, only partly because of the massive pothole in front of them, and looks over at his best friend who looks completely unaffected by the creepy sign.

 

“Stiles...” Scott tosses back, tone much more light and friendly and making-fun-of-Stiles.

 

“Are you sure this is the right place?”

 

Scott nods, not even bothering to check the written directions and map in his lap. “Yup. It’s Hale Lake.”

 

“They’re waiting on getting a new sign,” Allison jumps in, leaning forward from the back seat. “Apparently there was a fire last summer and the sign took a bad hit.”

 

Stiles glances between the two of them and then pushes forward over the wheel to watch the sign as they pass under it. The thing is, none of the trees look like they’ve been hit by any fire. Then again, it’s not like Stiles is a forest fire guru. In fact, he knows absolutely nothing about forest fires, so maybe it’s completely normal to have a very specific burn.

 

He’s still reassuring himself of his complete lack of forest fire knowledge as they approach the camp grounds. The voice in his head, that is his voice, stutters to a halt when he catches sight of a man half hidden by trees, staring at them. He’s tall, dark wild hair, dark stubble, and muscles barely contained by his black t-shirt. Never in his life has Stiles felt at once the dual urges to jumping someone and running for cover. A shiver slides up his spine as they drive past, equal parts desire and pure creepiness, the latter somewhat overpowering when he notices the man is loosely holding an axe in one hand.

 

“That guy...”

 

“Oh, that must be the groundskeeper Laura talked about,” Allison chirps. “Wow. He’s pretty...” Scott whips around to face her and Stiles doesn’t even have to look to know his eyes are wide and shocked with hurt that isn’t even deserved because Allison hasn’t even said anything. “tall,” Allison finishes, laughter in her voice. “Come on Scott, you know you’re the only one for me.”

 

Kissing noises come from an all too close vicinity and Stiles tries his best not to drown them with dramatic gagging sounds of his own. Instead he cranes his neck to get a last look at Creepy Hot Groundskeeper as they drive past.

 

There’s a lot, a clearing that is just barely a clearing because the wilderness is fighting pretty hard to get it back, that is home to a little wooden sign, this one in much better repair, that says _Parking_. Unsurprisingly there aren’t any lines or designated spots to park, so Stiles just pulls the jeep in, intentionally taking up as much space as possible by pulling in at the most awkward angle imaginable. He hasn’t seen Danny in the rearview mirror any time recently and, while the douchebag parking will make Danny sigh, it will drive Jackson up the wall. Whenever Stiles can do something to piss Jackson off while being relatively secure in the fact that he will not get punched, he does, because Jackson is a douche and deserves to be handed back what he serves.

 

Throwing the jeep into park, Stiles turns the key and cuts the engine with a cry of, “Destination reached!” because he is not going to let some creepy welcome sign get him down. This is going to be an amazing and wondrous three day weekend retreat away from school and homework and professors and undergraduate idiots--with the exception of Jackson.

 

Because they brought Jackson with them.

 

Piling out of the jeep they grab their stuff and follow a near weed consumed sign with a thick arrow pointing them toward an overgrown path that supposedly leads to an office.

 

“Funny thing,” Stiles muses as he ducks another branch, “I could have sworn I saw a guy Allison called a groundskeeper.”

 

Ahead of him Allison makes a sound that has a ninety percent likelihood of being accompanied by an eye rolling of some kind. “It’s an entire campground, Stiles. You can’ expect one guy to be able to keep the whole thing perfect all the time.”

 

“Not unless it’s his job.” He pauses for dramatic effect before concluding with, “Oooh wait, pretty sure it is.” And then he swallows whatever else he was going to say because they break through the little path and are suddenly in the campground. They can’t see the whole thing, it starts where they are, with a building some ten yards ahead of them labeled _LODGE_ in big, bold, yellow letters above a set of double doors. Closer to them is a single door with _OFFICE_. There’s a large clearing off to the side that, from a distance, looks like it includes targets of some sort, and wide paths that lead off to the right to a variety of different cabins, only the first three of which he can actually see. The rest are pretty secluded.

 

“Woah. This is...”

 

“Awesome?” Stiles finishes, because he’s pretty sure that’s the word Scott is looking for.

 

Sure enough, Scott nods. “Dude. Yes. Awesome.”

 

“Aren’t you the one who booked the reservations? Didn’t their website have, like, pictures or something?”

 

“I booked them,” Allison says, and, really, that makes so much more sense. “Come on, let’s check in with Laura and see what cabins we’re in.”

 

It takes Stiles a second to start following her. “Wait. We’re not all in the same cabin?” When Scott had joined the concept of camping with cabins, he’d just assumed it was going to be like summer camp, that they were all going to pile into one big cabin together and have one big awesome sleepover weekend. He catches up with Scott and bumps their shoulders together. “Hey?”

 

“Hm? Oh, well... they range from two to four people cabins...” Scott starts, and he’s doing that thing where he won’t meet Stiles’ eyes and Stiles does that thing where he starts to become amused and not at the same time because he knows what this means. “And we thought that, you know, since there’s me and Allison, and Jackson and Lydia, that, well...”

 

With a long suffering sigh, Stiles rolls his eyes heaven’s way until bringing his gaze back to Scott. If Scott’s ruining his group cabin camping experience for some tail the least Stiles gets to do is harass him for it. “That you guys would get private cabins so you could screw like little woodland creatures?”

 

Pink washes over Scott’s face, far better hidden by his darker skin than when Stiles blushes. Damn him. Despite the embarrassment, he nods. “Pretty much.”

 

“Scott!” Allison rebukes from just ahead of them, throwing a narrow eyed glare over his shoulder. Apparently she’s not aware of exactly how much Stiles, unfortunately, knows about her and Scott’s relationship.

 

They’re not quite to the lodge when the office door is thrown open with a bang. The woman that steps out is beautiful, tall with long dark hair and striking features. Despite her heavy waxed cotton mountain jacket Stiles can tell from her legs she has a body he wouldn’t mind staring at for awhile. Not like Creepy Hot Groundskeeper though. Creepy Hot Groundskeeper has the kind of face and muscles that should be etched in stone. In fact, they probably are, somewhere in Greece.

 

A bright, “Hello there!” breaks him out of his reverie. “You must be Allison!” Bright red lips split into a wide, welcoming smile that reveal pristine white teeth. “Laura. Nice to meet you.” She steps out on light feet to take Allison’s extended hand.

 

“Nice to finally meet you in person,” Allison greets. Releasing hands, she steps to the side. “This is my boyfriend, Scott.”

 

“Nice to meet you, Scott.” Laura moves forward for another handshake.

 

“And that’s Stiles.”

 

Green eyes brighten at Stiles’ name, which is a little odd, but maybe it’s just her reaction to his name, because everybody has a reaction to his name. Her smile thins and widens, which makes it go from openly friendly to borderline creepy, and is something Stiles will just go ahead and ignore, he’s really not one to judge people who spend their lives secluded in the mountains living off tourists. “Stiles.” Her voice is low and almost a, he thinks he might define it as something like a purr.

 

A small piece of the back corner of his brain tells him he should not so readily offer his hand, but it’s the part that, if he listened to more, would make his life boring and lacking in pizzazz. It’s easy to ignore, because he always does. He’s had tons of practice. Stiles takes her hand. “Hey there.” Her grip is surprisingly strong.

 

When they let go of each other and she steps back, she’s still staring at him, which he assumes means she’s waiting for something from him, so he offers, “This place is pretty cool. Were those targets I saw in the field?”

 

“Yes. Targets. We offer archery.”

 

“Really?” He’s surprised and a little impressed. Of course, even summer camps offered archery, so he’s no sure why he’s surprised a camp that actual adults go to would as well. Maybe because he’s pretty sure he’d actually be more dangerous with a bow and arrow now than he was at the tender age of twelve when a camp councilor was hovering over his shoulder. “You know, Allison does archery. She’s, like, crazy good. She almost got into the Olympic preliminaries.”

 

Laura’s eyes widen, eyebrows climbing up as she glances over at Allison. “That’s impressive.”

 

“I know. It’s crazy. She also goes hunting with her dad. She can kill a squirrel from, like, a hundred yards.”

 

A sigh from Allison. “I never said that, Stiles.”

 

“Pft, whatever.” He shrugs and turns his attention back to Laura. “It’s pretty impressive. It’s why I trust Scott with her.”

 

“Stiles!”

 

Laura laughs. It’s nice and open, but she’s doing something with her eyebrows that Stiles can’t quite interpret. He thinks she might be concerned about something, or maybe just not as impressed as he is by Allison’s archery skills. Tomorrow he’ll ask if Allison will show off a bit, that’ll show Laura.

 

“Do we need to sign in?” Allison asks, ignoring the silent eye-battle happening between Stiles and Scott, which Stiles is winning, by the way. 

 

“It’s okay, you can do that later. Let me show you your cabins, you can get settled look around.” Glancing around, her brows furrow again, but this time it’s obviously in some kind of confusion. “There are going to be three more of you, right?” Actually, she might be concerned.

 

Now that he thinks about it, Stiles takes another look around the grounds, the camp is pretty empty. Deserted even.  Are they the only customers? That’s one part strange and two parts awesome.  By the look of this place, they’re the only visitors the camp has had all year.  Doubt it, it’s the middle of September and the season is coming to a close in the next few weeks, unless the place is open for winter camping as well, and it’s Friday. Maybe it’s not that weird.

 

Nodding affirmative, Allison reassures the woman. “They’re behind us a bit. We took two cars.”

 

“Right. Of course.” Laura says that like she considers herself silly for not knowing it, though how she could know they took two cars Stiles isn’t really sure. “Anyway, your cabins. Follow me.”

 

Laura heads off across the central clearing in front of the lodge and toward the wide path that leads back into the forest and a string of partially hidden cabins. Looping her hand through Scott’s arm, Allison moves them to follow a wide smile pulling at her lips. Hitching his duffled back up on his shoulder, Stiles turns as well and pauses, something dark catching in the corner of his vision.

 

Turning his head to look back toward the overgrown path from the parking area he spots Creepy Hot Groundskeeper standing there, half hidden in the shadows and branches of the path, looking hot and looming and hot and creepy. He takes a step forward and something bright glints in the sunlight. The axe. Creepy Hot Groundskeeper is still holding the axe. Hm.

 

Cocking his head to the side, Stiles tries to imagine the man in plaid flannel and brown work boots. Combined with the scruffy facial hair and intense eyes he comes up with an image of a lumberjack that is twelve unbuttoned buttons away from being a calendar spread. Then Creepy Hot Groundskeeper’s chin dips ever so slightly and his eyes go from intense to scary and Stiles jumps, turns, and quickens his pace to catch up with the trio already across the clearing and up the path.

 

 

 

Stiles’ cabin is a two bedroom that he gets all to himself. Allison said it was because she’d thought he would appreciate having his own sleeping space, but he’s pretty sure that’s not the reason, because there is no good reason he would say no to a bunkmate, which means Danny may have request “his own sleeping space.” Then again, Stiles can forgive Danny that, because Danny is awesome, and Danny probably has a legit reason for wanting his personal space. Maybe Danny plans on joining the others with their hankypanky time, just on a solo basis. Actually, that’s not that bad of an idea. Stiles hasn’t had quality time with his own hand for a while.

 

With that, and thoughts of the two fleeting sights of Creepy Hot Groundskeeper, Stiles is completely and one hundred percent on board with having his own cabin.

 

“Go ahead and get settled then come to the lodge. We’ll have an introduction when the rest of your friends get here.”

 

Allison and Scott have a cabin closer to the lodge. Actually, compared to them Stiles is kind of out on his own in the middle of the forest. Of course, if the alternative is being close and potentially hearing loud Allison-Scott sex, or even Lydia-Jackson sex, well, he’s perfectly content being out in the middle of wilderness nowhere because that, that is something his ears never need to hear _again_ thank you very much.

 

Laura’s just lingering at the door, single eyebrow raised in expectation, and Stiles realizes that she’s, once again, waiting for some kind of response. Man the woman and her need for feedback. Is he supposed to tip her like a bellboy? “Yes. Okay. Lodge after settling in. Sure.”

 

She doesn’t start backing out, but her eyebrows are even now, so that seems like a good thing. “There’s a lock on the door.”

 

“Oh...kay then. Lock on the door. Noted.” He’s not sure why that’s important, it’s not like he has a significant other who he needs to be worry about being found naked with or anything. Unless... “Wait, can cougars, like, open doors or something? Is that a problem? Wildlife breaking into cabins?”

 

The raised eyebrow is back, but this time it’s not prompting him to speak. No, this is a familiar look. It’s the look Stiles gets when someone has no clue what to do with him. “No. That’s definitely not a problem.”

 

“Then... I mean. Are there other people around? It doesn’t seem like there’s anybody else around. Do you have homeless people around here? Are you worried about zombies?” He’s really kind of confused by this. They’re in the middle of nowhere in the mountains, why is his lock important?

 

Now she laughs, but it’s kind of breathless, like she’s doing it because she doesn’t know what else to do. “No, definitely no homeless people, and no zombies either. Just,” she rolls her eyes, “I was just letting you know.”

 

“Okay. Thanks. I guess.”

 

She gives him a last, lingering look and then steps out and closes the door behind her. That, Stiles notes, is one weird woman.

 

They’re just arriving at the lodge when Danny pulls into the parking lot.  He is barely even parked when Jackson is jumping out of the backseat, gesturing wildly to Stiles’ parked jeep.

 

“What kind of parking job is _this_?” Jackson’s voice is reaching meltdown levels already.  “STILINSKI!”

 

“What?” Stiles bellows back, raising his eyebrows comically at Scott.  “What’s wrong with my parking?”

 

“What’s wrong with...” Jackson sputters, gesturing violently at the jeep with his fist.  “Look at this.  _Look at this._   Who taught you how to park?”

 

“My mom!”

 

“There’s only so many times you can pull the dead mom card, dickweed, and you’ve crossed it.  You did this on purpose.” His hand slaps against the back windshield.

 

Good luck with the grime on that, Stiles thinks.

 

“Yes Jackson,” Stiles answers, tone heavily laced with sarcasm.  “I deliberately parked my jeep just to incite your wrath, because obviously the purpose of this whole trip was to piss you off.”

 

“I knew it!  I knew it!”

 

“Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to help me with my luggage?” Lydia’s deceptively sweet tone breaks through Jackson’s insanity.  At first Stiles thinks that she’s talking to Jackson; if the way Jackson turns towards her automatically says anything, it’s how very whipped he is.  But Lydia isn’t looking at Jackson, she’s looking into the forest across from the vehicles.

 

Only Lydia would even think to ask Creepy Hot Groundskeeper for help with luggage, but she effectively broke Jackson’s tirade, because now he appears to be glowering in the direction of the forest.

 

“Dude,” Scott whispers in reverent tones.  “Jackson is so high strung this weekend.  This is going to be awesome.  You did it on purpose, right?”

 

“Of course.  Look at that parking job,” Stiles gestures vaguely in the direction of the lot.  “When was there any doubt?”

 

 

 

Lydia is still huffing about the way Creepy Hot Groundskeeper turned around and disappeared into the woods after very obviously having heard her request to pick up her bags, when they make their way into the lodge where Laura is waiting for them in front of a massive fireplace surrounded by worn, but lush, furniture. “Welcome! Come on in. Go ahead and put the bags down and take a seat, I want to introduce you to Hale Lake, go over a few guidelines, and then let you get off and enjoying your vacation.”

 

Stiles thinks he would probably enjoy his vacation more if he could get off with Creepy Hot Groundskeeper, and it’s probably because of this line of thinking that he doesn’t catch a lot of what Laura is telling them. Scratch that, he’s not sure he catches any of it.

 

No. Wait. He remembers something about not wandering off by yourself. He remembers that because he’d found his daydreams shoved to the back of his mind by the pressure of suddenly having six pairs of eyes on him. Apparently everybody thought he was the only person on the face of the planet who’d never been taught the buddy system, which was a little weird, because his dad’s a sheriff. If anything, he should be quizzing them on buddy system rules and regulations.

 

There also may or may not have been something about avoiding the groundskeeper and staying within a certain proximity of the camp, but Stiles is really unsure about those ones, and neither of them seem all that important, so he’s not going to worry about them all that much.

 

So, with one and two halves--and does that legitimately make two whole?--pieces of advice about how to conduct himself on his own vacation in a very safe and manageable location in the middle of the mountains, Stiles escapes the lodge and wanders outside with every intention of grabbing Scott and going exploring. Unfortunately Scott is already walking away, clinging to Allison, or maybe Allison’s clinging to him, and despite there being three other people there as well, Stiles finds himself strangely alone.

 

Alone and wandering around, because that’s what he’d wanted to do, and he’ll do it by God. Even if he’s by himself. Half stomping, half not stomping, Stiles makes his way around the back of the lodge and comes up short.

 

Creepy Hot Groundskeeper is... Stiles doesn’t even know what he’s doing.  There’s a lot of fur bits, and blood, and the scent of raw meat in the air.  Stiles is legitimately frightened.  He’s standing in the space between two trees, wondering where his sanity went, fearing for his life.  “I’ll save you a paw,” Creepy Hot Groundskeeper says, bringing down his oh so very large knife on the small woodland creature in front of him on the workbench.

 

“Excuse me?” Stiles asks, voice tense.

 

“Rabbit’s foot.  For luck.”

 

“Ahhh,” Stiles answers.  “Thanks?”  His voice definitely sounds high, in ways it hasn’t since he was thirteen and just breaking into puberty.  Fear can do awful, awful things to a man in front of another man who may or may not be threatening the first man.

 

Or possibly giving him a gift?

 

“Stiles?” Scott’s voice thankfully breaks Stiles out of his reverie, and he spins around.

 

“I’ll be right there.” He yells behind him, then turns back to the Creepy Hot Groundskeeper.  The black t-shirt doesn’t look nearly as inappropriately hot for a man who works in the woods now that Stiles can see the way it hides blood.  Which is, you know, a thought that isn’t not frightening.   “I have to.  Well.  Have fun with your... gutting and maiming.”

 

“Supper.”

 

“What?”

 

“It’s supper.  I snared the rabbits and I’m cleaning them so we can all eat.” CHG growls, like eating personally offends him.

 

“Good.” Stiles swallows.  “Great.  Food.  Yippee.  I love eating Thumper.”

 

By the time he finds Scott, who’s detached himself from Allison, Stiles isn’t sure what just happened.  He just can’t get a handle on Creepy Hot Groundskeeper. Is he Creepy?  Is he Hot?  Is he just a Groundskeeper?  Stiles isn’t even sure.

 

“I know this place is remote, dude, but apparently they feed us off the land.  Have they never heard of a grocery store?”

 

“What?  There were bags of chips and marshmallows in the kitchen just a few minutes ago.”

 

“Yeah, well, we’ll be eating rabbit tonight.  I just saw Creepy Hot Groundskeeper prepare them.  Let’s hope to god he cooks them before serving them up.”

 

“What?  Do you think he’d just drop them raw on the table?” Scott laughs. 

 

Scott has no imagination.  Stiles knows this and levels him with a look. 

 

“What?” he asks uneasily.  “Really?  No, he wouldn’t.  Would he?  Allison!” Scott calls out.  “The brochure said home _cooked_ meals, right?”

 

Scott’s so easy it’s scary sometimes. 

 

Supper is delicious.  The rabbits are roasted to a succulent golden crispness that Stiles almost feels proud of, as though the two minutes he spent in Creepy Hot Groundskeeper’s presence gives him honorary hunter bragging rights.  The mountain air is beautiful and it gave him more of an appetite than he thought it would.  He’s thoroughly enjoying himself, and everyone else is going to have just as fantastic of a time as he is, even if he has to force them to.  It’s nice to see all his friends together in one space for a prolonged amount of time, and this trip _is for him, dammit._

 

Lydia is laughing, her beautiful lyrical laughter that still makes him look to her, either out of years of habit, or residual feelings.  He turns.

 

There is someone in the woods, standing just outside the window.

 

Watching.

 

Stiles turns his head entirely, staring back.

 

His heart rate picks up, and he isn’t sure if it’s out of fear or hope that Creepy Hot Groundskeeper is outside.

 

“Your groundskeeper,” he addresses Laura.  “Is he going to join us?”

 

Laura looks surprised at the request, like no one has ever asked that before.  “He’s not... well socialized,” she finally answers.

 

“When we were making arrangements,” Allison starts carefully.  “You didn’t mention that he was...”

 

“He won’t bother you,” Laura quickly assures her.  “Ignore him. You shouldn’t even see him for the duration of your stay.  He tends to stay out of sight.  He’s not crazy,” Laura laughs hallowly.

 

Stiles thinks he should be frightened, but instead he blurts out.  “No, just crazy hot.”

 

Laura’s eyebrows furrow.  “What?”

 

“Sure, if you choose to take the fact that he’s always carrying around an axe to be frightening and foreboding, he’s a bit scary, but if you choose to see it as a tool of the trade -- the trade of keeping the grounds neat and tidy, and ok so he might not be the best at his job, but he did skin these rabbits really well, so maybe his talents lie elsewhere -- then he’s not scary, he’s just misunderstood.”

 

“What?” Laura repeats, staring at Stiles.  “Misunderstood?  That’s... mature of you to say.”

 

Stiles shrugs.  “He seems really nice.  I think maybe I misjudged him on first sight.  Maybe we’ve all misjudged him.”

 

“You spoke to him?” Laura asks.  Really confused.

 

Stiles is used to people reacting that way when he speaks, but now he’s a little worried about the way she’s reacting, as though the fact he thinks Creepy Hot Groundskeeper is misunderstood rather than a psychotic killer is worrying. 

 

Erk.  Should he fear being rendered in half by an axe wielding hottie?

 

Was that even something _to_ worry about?

 

“What my friends are trying to say,” Danny interjects smoothly, “is they didn’t realize that your groundskeeper would be Stiles’ type.  I don’t think any of us anticipated that.”

 

“He’s everyone’s type,” Stiles informs the table sullenly.  “Don’t act like I’m alone in this.”

 

“You really, really are,” Jackson says, the first words he’s said all evening.

 

Jackson hates camping.  Jackson hates anything without room service.  Jackson is hard pressed to admit that he doesn’t hate Stiles.

 

Stiles thinks that Jackson is good at suppressing his feelings towards the things he really loves.  Because Jackson is a robot.  Literally.  A robot.  Stiles’ running theory is Jackson was created as a pleasurebot and somehow got sent back in time, and has no idea he’s a robot. 

 

This way, Stiles feels sorry for Jackson when he acts like a douche, because Jackson downloaded his personality off one of the characters from the original 90210.

 

Stiles is going to make sure Jackson has the best camping experience ever so he feels like a real boy.  Maybe first he’ll send Jackson on a two-mile hike through the woods, where Stiles can’t hear all the things Jackson has to say about his feelings on the subject of camping.

 

He thinks that’s a fantastic plan right up to the point he’s somehow persuaded to go along.  He doesn’t know how it happens, but he assumes it was a group effort.  He’s waiting outside the lodge, taking the time to tie his laces as Jackson and Danny go change into proper hiking boots and wondering how these things happen to him.

 

That should be his second indication that this is going to be torturous on a level usually reserved for Prometheus, liver pecking and all.  He doesn’t even own hiking boots.

 

Lydia grabs his arm just as he’s contemplating running away and hiding in his cabin.  “Don’t make this into that time you made us all marathon the Star Trek movies because you found out how much Jackson hates Star Trek.”

 

“Who hates Star Trek?” Stiles asks rhetorically.

 

“I know you think it’s fun to torture him.  Don’t.”

 

Beautiful, terrifying Lydia.  At one point in his life, Stiles would have bent over backwards to please her, even if it meant bending over to please Jackson.

 

That definitely sounds wrong.

 

But not today, Lydia!

 

“Don’t worry,” he assures her.  “I won’t incite the Wrath of Khan.”

 

Seriously.  Who doesn’t like Star Trek?  Maybe people who have lived Star Trek.  Like robots.

 

The hike is just as bad as he imagined.  Maybe worse because it is tedious.

 

There are only so many trees he can see before his brain starts running wild and he begins planning out what defenses the camp has against the impending zombie apocalypse.  It’s one of the things he does while bored.  The one he has for the Cal library is epic in detail.

 

He’s just finished stumbling down an embankment in hour two of their hike, so miserable that he just wants to go back to camp and put his feet up and forget that there is such a thing as wilderness.  Stiles has an awesome sense of adventure, Danny and Jackson are just really boring hikers.  They seem to be doing it for the exercise and not the cool off-trail discoveries they could make.

 

Stiles is pretty sure they’ve been walking in a circle around the camp for two hours.  He’s seen the same lake scene twice and they’re almost coming up to a third lap.

 

It almost always corresponds with where he sees Creepy Hot Groundskeeper.  Stiles isn’t sure CHG actually moves, or if he just stands there waiting for them to come around the lake again like the world’s slowest spectator sport.

 

And there CHG is for the third time, staring at him in the woods. “Do you think he's making sure we make it through our hike safely? I resent the implication.” Stiles calls out to Jackson.

 

“Who?” Jackson asks.

 

Creepy Hot Groundskeeper literally disappeared into thin air.  “How does he do that?” Stiles wonders, slowing down deliberately as the guys rounded a corner past a thick corps of trees.  Realizing he’s alone, Stiles slips off the path.

 

Creepy Hot Groundskeeper totally needs upgrading to Hot Creepy Groundskeeper, Stiles decides, staring at the gleaming muscles on display in front of him.  The thin black t-shirt never was very effective at hiding Hottie’s fantastic arm muscles, but Stiles hadn’t even considered what else it could be hiding.

 

The most perfect abs in existence.

 

In front of him.  Flexing as Hot Creepy Groundskeeper chops wood.

 

Stiles clears his throat, suddenly overcome by the scent of pine, woods, and masculinity.  That’s a thing, right?  Sudden onset allergies or something.  Stiles almost rues the fact that the only wood he knows how to chop is innuendo only.

 

He takes a step backwards, not entirely sure why he’s watching the athletic and competent movements of the groundskeeper with an axe, but he’s moving with a rhythm Stiles would never be able to find before accidentally chopping off his foot.

 

He thinks he’s managed to get back into the treeline without distracting Creepy Hotness when he hears his friends calling for him in the distance.  It isn’t that he wants to worry them, he knows the chances of him getting lost in the woods --what with his innate curiosity and the lure danger seems to have over him -- is relatively high.  He just doesn’t want to call back to them when he’s so close to a moving axe.

 

He knows he hasn’t made a noise, but when he looks back Creepy Hot Groundskeeper is staring at him.

 

Stiles makes a sound of distress, mostly because he’s pretty sure this isn’t the kind of camping where he should be pitching a tent.

 

“Derek,” Creepy Hot Groundskeeper says.  Then slices through a log of wood without looking.

 

“Uhm,” Stiles’ brain runs off without him.  What?  “That’s not... my name isn’t... I know you weren’t around for introductions, but...”

 

“Derek is my name.”

 

“Right.”  Now Stiles feels like an idiot.

 

 

He thinks about Derek all through the ghost stories Laura tells around the fireplace.  The ambiance is right for them, but Laura just seems to be recycling old favourites that he had seen on Supernatural like eight seasons ago, back when it was less about fan-favourite Angels and more about ghost stories.  By the time she finishes with the Hookman and moves on, Stiles is bored and yearns to take out his book.  Scott’s sitting in rapt attention, though, and Danny actually chips in with a story of his own.

 

Soon, they’re all laughing and telling tales from the grave.  It’s everything he wants from a camping trip, even if there aren’t any hot dogs on a stick.

 

There are smores though because Laura knows how to entertain young twenty-somethings who think they’re teenagers.  Ghost stories and smores.

 

Like all good things, it ends sooner than he would like and he’s been abandoned in the lodge, the couples having snuck out in ways that they probably thought made it look incidental and in no way suspicious. After that Danny hadn’t even bothered to give pretense, had just stood up, muttered something about leaving his Kindle in his cabin and wanting to get a good night’s sleep, which Stiles is pretty sure is a euphemism of some sort, though a weird one, and left.

 

Maybe he’s going to go Kindle his self-loving?  Stoke the log in his fireplace?  Rekindle the romance with his right _and_ left hand?

 

He’s not sure if he’s surprised or not that, within thirty seconds of Danny’s wake, Derek slides into the room and takes a seat in the far corner in a tall, black leather, wingback chair that squeaks ever so softly as he sits down. Glancing up from his book--and, okay, it’s a textbook, but, in his defense, Anthro 166 is actually kind of an awesome class--Stiles finds himself staring straight into Derek’s eyes, which are fixated on him.

 

“Can I help you?”

 

The, “No,” is so quick Stiles suspects the man’s been practicing it in his head.

 

Shrugging, he goes back to reading, secretly pleased he and Derek are the only ones in the room because it means he doesn’t have to worry about anybody else catching him making eyes at the guy. But he can’t make eyes at him, because every times Stiles glances up from his book to get a super secret look at chiseled features and bearded scruff that makes him want to rub his faces on Derek’s face, Derek is staring straight back.

 

Either they’re having the most awkward game of ‘steal secret glances’ ever, or Stiles is getting stared at. Like, legit stared at. No breaks in staring, stared at.

 

Finally he takes a break from fidgeting, in which he’s actually just trying to get into a position that he can watch the other without being too obvious, not that that seems to be stopping Creepy Hot Groundskeeper, to sit up straight and address the matter straight on. “You want something to read?” because Stiles has The Watchmen in his bag and if Derek is reading, he can’t be staring at Stiles.

 

“I’m fine.” Derek says it without blinking and Stiles is half freaked out, half flattered. Okay, he’s more than half flattered. Maybe he’s wholly flattered.

 

Somewhere in the lodge, down the hall that leads to the kitchen, possibly, there’s cackling laughter. It sounds feminine. God, Laura is so weird.

 

“Okay,” is about the only thing he can muster up in response to that. He’s a little distracted by the idea that someone could find it sufficiently entertaining to just stare at him, which wouldn’t be weird if Stiles were doing normal Stiles things, but is now weird because all he’s doing is reading.

 

How interesting can that be?

 

If anyone were to question him, he would definitely say he wasn’t entirely disappointed to hear the squeak of leather and see, in his peripheral vision, the motion of Derek getting up and walking out.

 

He stays though. The fire is warm and the chair is comfortable, and Stiles may or may not be relatively certain he will need physical assistance to get out of said chair, but he’s also holding on to the hope that Derek will return and stare at him a bit more. Or, wait, no. That he’ll return with a book and Stiles can do some of the staring. He wants this to be an equal opportunity staring relationship.

 

The odds are in his favor tonight, because ten minutes or so, it could be five or thirty for all Stiles knows, he’s been distracted from reading by memories of intense green-gray eyes and muscles, Derek returns. This time he doesn’t walk to the black leather wingback though. No, this time he walks straight up to Stiles and holds something out. Something that smells suspiciously like, “Hot chocolate.” He might moan the word, but that’s only because he loves himself some hot chocolate and this...

 

Stiles takes the mug while taking a long sniff and a quick glance shows a small mint cluster half submerged in the chocolate goodness. “Um... wow.” He looks up, impressed. “That’s... Wow. I actually love mint in my hot chocolate. This is awesome.” He grins and takes a sip. It’s searing hot, exactly how he likes it.

 

Hooded eyes watch him drink with intensity that is almost a physical force. “It grows five and a half miles from camp.”

 

Wow. “Wow. That’s... really nice of you,” and super impressive. Stiles wonders if maybe Derek picked it while following them during their hike. “You put mint in your hot cocoa too?”

 

“I don’t drink hot chocolate.”

 

“Oh. Crazy lucky guess then.”

 

x.x.x.x.x.

 

Some wild animal dragged a carcass onto his front stoop and Stiles wonders again if cougars can open doors.  He’s locking his for sure, because then the cougar will need really good lockpicking skills.  Stiles is sure that it would need opposable thumbs for that, but what does he know about lockpicking?  He’s not exactly a lockpicking expert.

 

He can maybe pick a locker padlock, that’s about it.

 

He casts a gaze around, but doesn’t see any wild woodland creatures, ones that will eat him or not, but once he lets himself into his cabin, he realizes that maybe all of them are inside.

 

And stuffed.

 

Like the lamp by his bed. 

 

He cannot even express his level of terror at a lamp, of all things. The base is made out of a dead squirrel, and there is a lightbulb coming out of it’s mouth. That is scary shit.

 

He has to turn it away from him because it’s beady little eyes say “saaave me, don’t let me be a lamp for all eternity.”

 

And Stiles’ weird little head says “it’s super creepy weird to be forced to turn on a squirrel.”

 

He wants to think of all the things he’d do to Derek instead, but he can’t under the judgemental eyes of the squirrel.

 

“Welcome to Hale,” he mutters.

 

Stiles turns over onto his other side, reaches out for the squirrel, which he has to turn back to face him so he can turn the lamp off, when something outside the window catches his half-blinded eyes. Squinting, he looks harder and, after a second, realizes it’s Derek. Standing just outside, shoulders and head framed perfectly in the square window.

 

“Derek?”

 

The man doesn’t move. Doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t even blink. It could be hypnotizing if it weren’t a little off-putting.

 

“Derek.” Not a question this time.

 

It doesn’t seem to have an affect. Maybe Derek thinks he’s hidden? That Stiles is just guessing the shadowy figure in his window.

 

“I can **_see_** you, Derek.”

 

No response.

 

Stiles sighs. “Really?”

 

Derek’s defined brow furrows, and for a second Stiles is almost one hundred percent sure that’s the only response he’s going to get. Thankfully, it’s not. “I wanted to see you get to bed.” A second later he adds, “safely.”

 

That’s actually really sweet, but Stiles keeps that to himself. “Alright. Well, I’m in bed now. Thanks for checking.”

 

A few long seconds pass and Derek still doesn’t leave. Apparently he’s really dedicated to making sure Stiles actually gets to sleep alright. So he turns the squirrel light off, flips onto his other side, and passes out.

 

x.x.x.x

 

 

 

This is seriously the weirdest vacation Stiles has ever taken with his friends.  He’s used to them making themselves scarce sometimes for nookie or whatever they get up to in their alone time--Stiles seriously suspects everyone is getting foot rubs. But him.  And Danny, but Danny has skills, he can probably rub his own feet.  Usually they will emerge from their bedrooms, or whatever corner they’ve found, and keep him company after an hour or so, and usually they don’t disappear at the same time.

 

Typically, they don’t see him walk into the camp’s bathhouse and scatter, despite the fact that by all appearances they could all really use showers.

 

Allison and Scott... Not to point fingers or anything, but they practically blanched when he walked into the camp washroom and fled like their lives depended on it.

 

Stiles doesn’t want to know what weird, kinky, weird shit he could have walked in on if he’d been a few moments later.

 

Wow, they must have very different cabins than he does if this is a sex-cation.  His cabin has the disturbing taxidermied squirrel lamp.  Seriously.   That is serious Psycho levels of frightening right there.  If he sees one hint of there being a taxidermied person anywhere, he is getting in his jeep and leaving everyone to all the sex they are having.

 

Maybe he should mention how creepy the lamp is to Laura.  It’s possible living out in the mountains has distorted her view of what is acceptable home decor.  Maybe she thinks it’s cute, or environmentally friendly, to stuff squirrels and use them as furnishings.  Like, waste not, want not.

 

Stiles stops thinking about it when the warm water of the shower hits his torso.  It feels really good after a night of tossing and turning on the mattress of the cabin, starring at the dead squirrel judging him from the bedside table until he turned its beady little eyes away from him again.

 

So much for alone time with himself and his right hand.

 

Stiles is just getting into the second verse of what very well could be an unintentional mash-up of Britney and Justin Timberlake when he hears footsteps outside the stall.  “Hello?” he calls out.

 

No one answers, but there aren’t any movements either, and he thought for sure someone entered.

 

Maybe he’s wrong.  Maybe one of his lamp’s furry relatives just skittered across the roof.

 

He’s just getting to the chorus, pulling a John Travolta move right out of Grease with his shampoo bottle as his microphone (and the shampoo lathered in his hand as the infamous comb) when he hears a second noise.

 

Stiles is convinced there is someone in the bathing house with him now. “I know there’s someone there,” he says.

 

No answer.

 

“Seriously not funny, Scott,” he mutters to extreme silence.

 

Worried, he parts the shower curtain only to come face to face with Derek.

 

Stiles comes perilously close to screaming and covering himself up with his hands.  Instead he stares back at Derek with a wide-eyed expression.

 

“Towel?” Derek asks, eyebrows overhanging cliffs.

 

“Uh thanks.” Stiles takes the towel from him, tucking it around his hips.  “What are you doing in here?” Stiles wonders.  “I thought I heard someone, but no one answered.”

 

“Laundry,” Derek growls in return, gesturing with his armful of towels.

 

“But aren't those clean?” Stiles nods to the bundle of neatly folded towels in Derek’s arms.  “Have you been watching me?” he asks tentatively, because this is weird, right?  This is something he should consider weird and not reason to step back into the shower and turn the cold water on for, right?

 

Stiles still isn’t sure what happened as he sits down to breakfast in the lodge.  Laura is at the head of the table, enjoying a cup of tea, so Stiles grabs a few pancakes from the hotplate set up on the sideboard and joins Danny at the table.  No one else has arrived yet, or possibly they’ve already eaten.

 

Stiles wonders who does all the cooking.  He’s only seen two people on staff here, and he can’t picture either Laura or Derek in the kitchen, though the mental image of Derek with an apron is hilarious.

 

“How was your shower?” Danny asks.

 

“It was ok, how was yours?”

 

“Fine, did anything strange happen to you?” Danny questions tentatively

 

“Oh my God! Did Derek watch you shower too?”

 

Up the table, Laura chokes on her tea.

 

“No. That’s... no.  Are you ok?” Danny asks, concerned, because Danny is a sweetheart.

 

Stiles waves his concern aside.  “Oh sure, it was nothing.  He was perfectly hospitable. He handed me a towel.”

 

“He was watching you shower!”

 

“Pfft what's to see?” Stiles brushes it aside.  “I’m not actually sure he was standing there the whole time.  He said he was doing laundry.  He was trying not to let me see, but I think there was a dead animal in the towels.  I think there’s some kind of wild cat problem, because there was some mangled rabbit on my doorstep last night.”

 

The china cup clicks against the saucer as Laura quickly puts down her tea.  She has that strange look on her face again as she excuses herself, the same one she wore during dinner when he’d talked about Derek’s crazy hotness. Stiles swears he hears her snickering before she's completely out of the room.

 

Stiles leans across the table towards Danny, shooting furtive looks towards the doorway.  “Have you guys noticed there's something seriously strange about Laura? She's starting to weird me out.”

 

“Laura is weirding you out?” Danny asked, deadpan.  “There's something very wrong with you.”

 

“Hey! Just because she's pretty doesn't mean I'm going to be swayed by her good looks to ignore the mass murder inside.”

 

Danny chokes his orange juice.

 

x.x.x.x.x

 

Lunch is buffet style at large picnic tables in the open space in front of the lodge. Once Allison had gotten set up for archery with Laura's assistance, Scott was a lost cause, and with Jackson around it wasn't like he could hang out with Lydia, and Danny... well, Stiles wasn't sure where Danny had gone to. The point was, though, that he'd been left alone, again, which meant he needed company, and since Derek seemed to be cropping up like some kind of nomad weed, Stiles decided he'd probably be the easiest company to find.

 

Surprisingly, that was not that case. Stiles had been looking around for ages attempting to find him, or even just spot him, possibly shirtless, with sweat-slicked abs glinting in the forest sunlight. He'd still been searching when a bell started ringing. Either something had leaked through in Laura's introduction speech or Stiles somehow inherently knew the noise meant food, it didn't really matter which, because toward it he mosied and food he found.

 

They're all settled at the table, smashing sandwiches together and getting their grub on when, of course, not ten minutes into their meal Derek breaks through the treeline and stalks past. He's wearing a gray tank top that's so tight Stiles isn't sure it counts as a shirt for all that it hides, but more disconcerting is the fact that said not-shirt is smeared with dark, heavy streaks of what Stiles can clearly tell is blood.

 

Jumping up from the bench he's on, Stiles smashes his knee into the bottom of the table, lets out a yelped curse of, "Ow shit ow!" before realizing he's trapped. Instead he leans back, as far as he can so he's not shouting in Scott's ear, and calls out. "Hey!"

 

No response. Derek keeps stalking, now just a few yards from the table.

 

"Derek!" Stiles tries waving his hands this time. If he wanted the attention of the other five people at the table, he's totally got it. Unfortunately that is not the goal.

 

"Are you hurt?"

 

Finally Derek's eyes flicker toward the table, but it still takes him a second before stuttering to a stop. His chin is down, head barely turned, like he thinks maybe he's imagining the whole thing, that Stiles is talking to some other bloodied person.

 

"Are you hurt?" Maybe he really didn't hear.

 

Derek looks from Stiles, down at himself, and then back up. "I was hunting."

 

Odd, because Stiles doesn't see any signs of hunting. Like, there's no bow, or axe, or gun, or, like, dead animals. "Are you sure?"

 

There must have been some kind of expression on Derek's face, though Stiles doesn't know what it was, because it somehow becomes flatter that it was half a second ago. "Yes I'm sure."

 

"Oh. What did you do? Take on a grizzly bear with your bare hands? I didn't think hunting was so bloody. Are you just, like, bad at it?" It's a legitimate question, because Stiles has never seen Bear Grylls or Less Stroud so bloodified after killing something.

 

"I'm a good hunter," Derek growls out, maybe Stiles offended him, and then he's stalking away.

 

Though, hey, maybe Derek took care of the cougar problem.  Maybe Derek actually was a good groundskeeper.

 

x.x.x.x.x.

 

Seriously.  This vacation.  What even?

 

He sees more of his friends back in Berkeley.

 

No one wants to go swimming with him.  Stiles doesn’t understand it.  It’s not that cold out, and it’s not like Laura told them any ghost stories involving the lake.  He’s pretty sure that one story about the dead ghost kid drowning people was an episode of Supernatural.

 

So he gets on his swim trunks and rubs on the sunblock Lydia had him buy and no one even needed, because for some reason his friends equate September with a month they can’t get skin cancer.  He puts on a t-shirt for the walk, because if he had crazy hot abs like Derek he would show them off, but he doesn’t, so he won’t. 

 

He pauses in front of the dock, eyeing it critically.

 

It will probably hold his weight.

 

Shrugging, Stiles pulls off his shirt quickly and drops his towel on the closest edge of the dock.  He takes a deep breath and runs down the length of the planks of wood over the water.  Just as he’s pushing off on the last one, it cracks beneath his weight and he pitches forward into the freezing water below.

 

Stiles surfaces seconds later, dripping water from his nose.  Not that he hadn’t planned to get wet, but there is a huge difference between jumping in on purpose and falling in as you’re trying to jump in on purpose.

 

The last board is completely splintered in half.  Again, it would be cool if he had done it on purpose, like some kung fu mad skills, but he hadn’t.  So it wasn’t cool, it just spoke to how terrible Derek was at keeping the grounds up.  “Dammit Derek!” Stiles exclaims before pushing off the lake bottom with his feet for a swim.

 

He reaches the quarter point in less than five minutes, and pauses to look back.  He’s just in time to see Derek emerge from the campgrounds with a plank of wood.

 

There is no way he’s missing this, Stiles thinks.  This might be his only opportunity to watch Derek do an actual groundskeeper task, mostly because Stiles is pretty sure Derek never actually works, he just spends all his time lurking around and hunting rabbit.

 

He pauses every few seconds to check his progress, which undoubtedly makes the journey back take twice as long.  That is fine by Stiles, because he actually gets to witness Derek strip off his shirt, kneel, and physically rip the rotted board away from the solid structure beneath it.  His back muscles flex from where he’s curled over to employ his strength, shoulders wide and competent as the wood comes apart beneath his hands.

 

It would be better up close, but at least he didn’t miss it entirely with his head in the water.

 

“Hey Derek,” Stiles says breathlessly, emerging from a swimmer’s crawl with a splash.  Derek is just putting down the new board, spare nails clenched between his teeth.  “So you do work here. I was wondering.”

 

“Were you hurt?” Derek asks, but with his lips pressed against steel, it’s difficult to tell.

 

“When I fell from heaven?” Witty rejoinders are totally his forte.  No one can tell him otherwise.

 

They do try.

 

“No, when you broke my dock.”

 

“When I broke your...” he breaks off, confused, because Derek couldn’t be saying... oh, d ** _o_** ck, he had heard something totally different. That’s what happens when his mind is still trying to come up with ‘wood’ jokes.  The word dock became something else.

 

Derek is looking at him with a glowering expression, as though people who trail off sentences are deserving of his condemnation and the eyebrows of disapproval. 

 

Stiles backs up a step and looks around innocently, trying not to look at Derek’s dick to see if it’s broken.

 

That’s when he notices the house.  While distinctly house-shaped, there is something off about it.  Something menacing in a way Derek can only dream of achieving. 

 

“What is that?” he asks Derek.

 

“I’m not falling for that.”  Derek actually scowls at him.

 

Stiles almost laughs, because Derek is looking at him warily, like Stiles just might be trying to trick him so he can pull him into the cool water with him.

 

“No seriously.  That building in the woods,” Stiles squints against the sun.  “Laura said during the introduction speech of boring that there were no neighbours for miles and miles.”

 

“That’s... my house.”  Derek braces one hand against the edge of the dock and leans forward in a looming manner.  “Was my house.  It’s burned now.”

 

“That sucks man,” is all the response Stiles can really formulate because he’s not actually sure what Derek just said to him.  All he knows is Derek is lifting his torso over the side of the dock like he’s the male equivalent of Ariel, and his biceps and abs are on display right in front of Stiles’ face as he tries to find the angle to see the house through the trees.  Stiles swallows and licks his lips, hand coming out of the water to rub over his mouth.

 

Drops of water land on Derek’s torso, totally an accident, but if Stiles had thought of it he would have done it on purpose.  Derek flinches back as the cool water hits him, as if he’s expecting Stiles to actually try to drag him into the cool depths of the lake. 

 

“Wait, I thought Laura said no one around here was homeless.”

 

“I do live somewhere,” Derek answers, eyebrows heavily drawn over his eyes.

 

“Oh? One of the cabins? Where do you live?”

 

“Somewhere!” Derek snarls almost violently, pushing up to his feet, hammer clenched tightly in his fist.  “Maybe visitors should learn to mind their own business.” He punctuates with a shake of the hammer before stalking away.

 

… okaaay.  That wasn’t weird or anything.

 

Stiles actually does manage to get a swim in, and by the time he gets out of the water he’s chilled.  His towel and shirt are right where he left them, but strangely enough there is a rabbit’s foot resting on top of the pile.

 

He’s actually a little frightened to pick it up, but when he does it turns out not to be one from last night. This one is well-preserved, and well-used, obviously a good luck charm for somebody.

 

“For luck,” he murmurs to himself and closes his fist protectively around the fur, and wonders at the meaning.

 

x.x.x.x.

 

“Hey Laura,” Stiles says as he walks up beside her.  “Does Derek have PTSD?”

 

“What?” Laura asks, that furrow back between her eyebrows.  “Excuse me,” she chokes, moving away from Stiles.  Just before she’s entirely out of earshot, he’s sure he hears her laugh, but it’s probably some wild animal.  A hyena maybe?

 

Do cougars cackle?

 

So, so weird.

 

He watches her retreat back to her office, and what she does there all the time he doesn’t even want to know, never in his life did he think someone who ran a camp ground inhabited by six guests and a homeless groundskeeper would be so busy, especially considering no one actually finds the time to chop down the weeds encroaching on the front entrance. Then she’s gone and his attention is back on the microwave, which is beeping and smelling like butter and popcorn and heaven.

 

When he walks back into the lodge’s main living area, the group is sprawled around in different states of disarray. Scott looks up, eyes going from Stiles to the bowl of popcorn, and sighs in relief. Scott has many different sighs and Stiles knows them all. This one is relief.

 

He glances around the rest of the room to find nobody else is looking at him, which shouldn’t be weird, but it is. It’s like avoidance looking. Actively not looking. The opposite of staring. Unstaring? “What?”

 

Holding up his hands in defense Scott says, “Hey, nothing. I’m just happy.”

 

“Happy about what?” Not that Scott shouldn’t be happy. He should be. Scott’s his best friend and deserves to be happy. It’s why Stiles is so cool with him dating Allison and having their epic bro time getting interrupted as often as it does.

 

“I just...” Scott shrugs. “I don’t know. You saw that creepy burned down house today and I’m just really happy you made popcorn.”

 

“Oooh.” Stiles draws the sound out in a way that is supposed to be innocent but makes Scott’s eyes narrow and Danny looks up from his Kindle. “Yeah. That. We are so exploring that.”

 

“But you made popcorn!”

 

“And I’ll eat my popcorn, gain it’s buttery corny strength, and then bravely lead us into the depths of the one and, likely, only mostly-destroyed, burned, decimated home that we are ever going to be able to explore. Duh.”

 

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” Allison chimes in. She likes to think she’s one of the reasonable ones. She probably is. It sounds reasonable anyway.

 

Reasonable is, in Stiles’ book, overrated. “It’s a perfect idea.”

 

“Laura said we weren’t supposed to go around there. She said it’s dangerous.” Danny this time. He’s definitely a reasonable one.

 

“Psh. Laura also laughs at weird and inopportune times. I don’t think she has all her marbles in one location.” Now everybody’s eyes are on him. “What? I’m just saying, she’s weird. I’ve been saying that this whole time.”

 

Allison’s the first to turn away, head down, shaking from side to side.

 

“We’re not going, Stilinski.”

 

Miming Jackson with his hand Stiles repeats, “We’re not going.  We are not Starfleet material,” in a nasally voice, afterwhich Jackson looks increasingly irritated. It’s almost too easy sometimes. “Funny you say that, because we totally are. And it will be awesome. Just you wait.”

 

x.x.x.x.x.x.

 

They’re lost.

 

“It's this way to the front door,” Jackson points.

 

“Pretty sure it’s this way,” Scott gestures in a perpendicular direction.  Stiles trusts Scott’s sense of direction only about half the time, but in this case he’s about 85% sure Scott is right.  Not that it matters, they’re in the half-burnt shell of the two story lake house that is Derek’s former home.  It might be large, but it is in no way mansion-sized, so there is a decent chance that even if they follow Jackson in the wrong direction, they’ll still find the door in the next five minutes.

 

A creaking sound comes from upstairs.

 

“Pretty sure you're wrong,” Jackson answers in that jerk way he has of mimicking a person’s way of speaking.  “But hey, if you want to stay in this creepy house in these creepy woods with those unidentifiable sounds, it doesn’t bother me any, because I’m leaving.  This way.”  Jackson finishes, confidently walking forward through the doorway. Suddenly he pitches forward with a flail of limbs, losing his footing and falling out of sight.

 

Stiles grabs Scott, half to keep him from running after Jackson and half out of shock.

 

“Oh my God!”

 

Scott manages to shake off Stiles’ hands, inching forward to look over the hole in the floor disguised as a shadow in the dark recesses of the house.

 

There isn’t much light, but Jackson’s habit of wearing pastel coloured polo shirts is working in his favour, because he practically glows on the ground below them.

 

“Oh my God!” Stiles exclaims again as they both look down at Jackson, utterly still on the ground in the ominously dank basement.

 

“Jackson!” Scott yells out, as though Jackson isn’t, technically, about six feet away from them. “We're coming for you!”

 

Jackson groans in return.

 

If Stiles had to rely on the two of them he would groan too.  “We need to get help,” he tells Scott, because holy shit, Jackson just fell through a floor.

 

“No,” Scott argues.  “We need to make sure Jackson is ok.”

 

“There’s nothing we can do for him if he isn’t,” Stiles points out rationally, not saying what he’s thinking, which is: Jackson is a stubborn and self-conscious sonofabitch.  If he was fine, he would have gotten to his feet already, shaking off the fall as nothing of consequence, and attempting to convince them to explore the basement to save face.

 

Jackson’s not doing any of those things, ergo they need help.  The kind of help that comes with a first aid kit and a stretcher.  Stiles is the son of a Sheriff, and he might not have the kind of first-hand experience with emergencies that Scott has from working at the Vet Clinic, but he knows things too.

 

Scott is already searching for a way down to the basement though, opening the few closed doors on the first floor with the kind of self-assurance that comes from believing in one’s ideals.  Stiles follows along, but he would trade a month’s use of his cell phone in the city for a signal right now.

 

By the time they get down to what is obviously a dungeon, because holy shit what are those metal chains hanging from the ceiling for? Stiles is seriously worried that they spent too much time trying to get to Jackson.  If they had taken a moment to yell for Derek, they would have known that the way down was lifting the floorboards in the burnt husk of the pantry. 

 

His plan would have been better, Stiles decided, because sound obviously carried over the lake and Derek would have heard him call from whatever corner he was lurking in.  Right now they could be armed with flashlights instead of the light from the phone Scott carries habitually, in case Allison texts, even when he’s _with_ Allison in a remote campground in the middle of nowhere with no cell service.

 

“Jackson,” Scott calls tentatively, inching forward.  The light from his phone isn’t cutting through the darkness very well.

 

They round a corner and Jackson’s douchy polo shirt lights up like a glow-stick in a gay bar.

 

“HOLY SHIT!” Stiles screeches, grabbing for Scott again, but this time he doesn’t have to because Scott is already there, clinging to Stiles and screaming in his ear.

 

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEIIII...”

 

“What the hell!” 

 

Jackson is on his stomach, a large pickaxe buried between his shoulder blades.

 

What the actual fuck.

 

“....IIIIIIIIIIIIIIiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.”

 

“No!” Stiles yells, pushing away from Scott as he runs out of breath, grabbing one of the loose pieces of charred floorboard littering the ground. 

 

Armed, he feels more secure inching towards Jackson.  Scott somehow has managed to keep a hold on his phone, despite screaming like a banshee, and the area is still illuminated from a combination of his flashlight app and the moonlight streaming in through the window upstairs, filtering through the missing floor above their heads.

 

From where he’s standing, he can clearly see one of the spodes in the pickaxe buried in the middle of Jackson’s back, right beneath his neck.  Blood is still seeping from the wound, sluggishly spilling over the back of Jackson’s flipped collar.  There isn’t as much as he thought there would be.

 

Maybe that’s a symptom of Jackson being a robot?

 

“Yeah,” Stiles nods at Scott.  “Grab a weapon.”

 

“Oh my god!” Scott exclaims, clinging desperately to his phone as his breathing becomes choppy.  “The groundskeeper is trying to kill us!”

 

Stiles turns on him. That’s a jump of logic. “What the fuck Scott? You see a large sharp tool and think it's the groundskeeper?” That’s just unfair. Derek’s done nothing to deserve this.  Except looming menacingly.  And butcher small animals for supper.  And axe things.  And possibly but probably not watching people shower, which might actually be sexy if not for the ambiance.  “For your information his weapon of choice is an axe.”

 

“Who else?” Scott asks the question in confusion, as if he can’t imagine any alternatives.

 

“I don't know? I bet Laura was lying! I bet the mountain is full of disgruntled prospectors -- with pickaxes -- and... and dwarves.  With pickaxes.  It isn’t just a groundskeeper’s tool, Scott. Lots of people use them.”

 

“ _To murder_?” Scott practically shrieks. 

 

x.x.x.x.x

 

“He’s dead,” Allison pronounces, face ashen as she wipes her fingers on her jeans.

 

“He’s dead, Jim!” Stiles echoes, unable to help himself.

 

“Did you just make a Star Trek joke over my dead boyfriend’s body,” Lydia hisses, achieving full Fury status.

 

The body lets out a low growl.

 

“He’s not dead!” Stiles points.  “He just groaned.”

 

“It was a death rattle,” Lydia seethes with condemnation for his stupidity.  “His body is expelling air.  That doesn’t mean he’s still alive.”  She says the last sentence in a tight voice, choking back tears.

 

Stiles feels like the lowest, most unfeeling jerk there is.  Maybe he’s the robot, though he’s always known that he makes a horrible robot because he would never be able to follow the second of Asimov’s Three Rules of Robotics: A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

 

For instance, Laura had warned them not to enter the Hale house and now Jackson is dead.  He had failed that rule big time.

 

Brushing past him, Lydia grabs Danny by the wrist and drags him with her out of the room with a muttered, “I shouldn’t have to see this.” And like that it’s Stiles, Scott, Allison, and Jackson. Or, to be more specific, Jackson’s corpse.

 

He’s not actually aware of the fact that he’s somehow become half convinced this is all a dream until Allison says, “We should go back to the lodge, call the authorities. Stiles,” dragging her eyes from Jackson’s body, she catches his eyes, “maybe you can call your dad.”

 

Just like that things are not funny. Jackson is dead. Like, dead dead. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. Red shirt dead.  Crime scene tape, cops, red and blue lights dead. That last image is one Stiles is morbidly familiar with and works to solidify everything else. He and his friends are in somewhere in the middle of the Stanislaus National Forest, an hour away from the nearest town, which is smaller than Beacon Hills, which Stiles didn’t realize mountain towns could be. Jackson is dead. Not just dead, but murdered, as in, dead via another person, meaning that there is a person out here with them with Jackson’s blood on their hands. A person who likes to make other people dead.

 

With a pickaxe.

 

It would be all too easy for Stiles to flip out right now. So instead he activates the part of his brain that prepares for apocalypses. Zombies, earthquakes, vampires, werewolves, EMP pulses, aliens--Stiles has challenged Scott for some years now to think of an apocalypse for which Stiles does not have a plan. Scott has yet to win. It’s much easier to think about these scenarios, the things and reactions and must-haves and must-do’s that Stiles has listed away in his brain, instead of reality. If he thinks too hard on reality he might come to the realization that he might die, and panic attacks are something he left behind him, he doesn’t need to revisit those days.

 

“Yeah.” It’s odd, hearing his own voice but not remembering having put the effort into speaking. He tries harder to focus on the present and his plans. He’s the son of a sheriff for Pete’s sake, he can do this, he can figure this out. “Lodge. Yes. We’ll call the police and stay put.” He nods, gaining more confidence.

 

Getting back to the lodge from the burned remains of the Hale house is a bit of a blur. Stiles blames that on a bad mix of adrenaline, panic, and fear. They ran, honest to God ran, ninety percent of the way. Even Lydia, which made Stiles panic a little more, because he has never in his life imagined Lydia would run for anything, but she’s running now.

 

They’re running in a cluster, almost tight enough that they danger tripping each other, but they don’t. Danny’s taking up the back, not because he’s a slow running, because he’s not, but Stiles is pretty sure it’s because he’s trying to protect their flank or something. And then his mind is consumed with the hulking shadow in the middle of the trail and they’re skidding to a halt in front of Derek, who is just standing there, staring at them and looming.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

Stiles almost can’t hear him over the sound of his heart slamming away behind his ribs. He waves his arm to indicate the house somewhere behind them, is in the middle of saying, “Jackson... We need-” to get to the lodge. To call the police. To realize that Derek has been staring at them while half-hidden behind trees like they’re to be studied. Suddenly Derek’s nickname distinctly lacks ‘hot.’ In Stiles’s mind he is now Creepy Potential Serial Murderer Groundskeeper.

 

“Jackson what?”

 

They’re clustered around each other, all of them breathing hard even though they shouldn’t be. It’s not a fitness thing though, it’s a terror thing, he’s pretty sure about that.

 

“In the Hale house,” Allison says. Her voice is strained.

 

Stiles finds himself nodding and saying, “Yes. We were trying to find you. He needs help. We were going to call an ambulance or... something...”

 

Derek stares them down, disbelieving. “I’ll check it out.” The way he disappears into the darkness of the forest is now much less cool and much more ‘terrifying to the _n_ ’th degree.’

 

They’re lucky Derek didn’t tell them to show him, and Stiles decides it’s a much better idea not to stick around and find out if he’ll come back. Instead he says, “Okay. I get what you guys were saying now. Now let’s get back to the lodge before he comes back.”

 

“Seconded,” Danny voices from the back, and they’re bolting again.

 

x.x.x.x

 

The lodge is lit and bright and would be downright cozy if it weren’t for the very graphic image of Jackson’s body playing on repeat through the back of Stiles’ head. Still, it looks like safety, a place with doors that lock and a telephone. He tries the office door while Allison tries the french doors. The office is locked but the others aren’t and they tumble through them into the living area, which is warm, and Stiles hadn’t even noticed how cold it had gotten outside until now.

 

Danny’s locking the door behind them and Stiles walks toward the far hall shouting Laura’s name until she’s skidding into sight, eyes wide.

 

“Good God, what happened to you guys?”

 

“Our friend just got murdered,” Stiles snaps back, hands flying up in the air, because he can’t deal with this right now. He can barely keep himself breathing and thinking straight. “You have a phone in that office, right? Because we need to call the sheriff, and the police, and then we need to lock all the doors because, no matter what you say, there is someone in those woods, and they’re killing people, and I think it might be your creepy-ass groundskeeper.”

 

“Woah. Hold on a second.” Her eyes are still wide and she’s holding her hands up like she thinks it will calm him down, when, in fact, it makes him want to flip out even more.

 

A hand lands on his shoulder and Stiles jumps, head whipping around. It’s Scott, lips pursed and tense, brows furrowed. “Dude. Take a breath. You okay?” He’s pale with concern, which irks Stiles, because Scott shouldn’t be worrying about him, he should be worried about whoever it is in the forest who just killed Jackson.

 

“I’m fine.” Considering it’s clearly a lie, he’s not all that surprised that Scott doesn’t relax or let go over his shoulder.

 

Danny steps into his line of sight, behind Scott, features pinched. “Is something wrong? Stiles?”

 

This is not happening. Stiles refuses to have a panic attack in front of a bunch of his friends. Unfortunately that’s exactly what’s going to happen unless he can calm himself down. The deep breath he takes is stilted and shuddered, but he still manages to count to five on the way in and five on the way out. “I’m fine,” he repeats, and this time it sounds more like truth. “I just...”

 

“I’ll call. How about you guys pull the curtains closed and make sure the doors are locked.”

 

“No.”

 

“Stiles, it’s okay. Allison can do it.”

 

Stiles shakes his head, not rough, but assertive, taking another deep breath, and this time it’s almost steady. “No. I mean, I have to call my dad too. He’ll make sure we get, like, a helicopter or something.” Nobody says anything about there not being any space for a helicopter to land, but that’s besides the point anyway. Really, he just wants to hear his dad’s voice.

 

Allison nods, reaching forward to put her hand on Scott’s wrist to pull his hand from Stiles’ shoulder. “Okay, that sounds good.”

 

“You want me to come too?” The strained expression on Scott’s face makes him look pained.

 

Glancing between the faces in the room, just barely meeting all the eyes that are on him, Stiles’s gaze settles back on Scott. He nods. “Yeah.” When he looks back at Laura the corners of her eyes are crinkled, not in laughter, but something else, more somber and serious. Considering. “Phone?”

 

With a nod she steps back into the hall. “This way.”

 

And that’s when the power goes out, leaving the large room bathed in the flickering orange glow of the softened flames dancing in the fireplace.

 

“Fuck,” is Stiles’ automatic, unfiltered response. No power means no phone means no sheriff or police or helicopter. Panic threatens to bubble up again, like the froth of boiling water and Stiles forcibly quells it with a lid made of anger and frustration and a waterfall of ideas of what to do next.

 

“Well that’s pleasant.” How Lydia manages to sound perfectly, well, perfect in the midst of seeing her boyfriends corpse and currently in the middle of a real life horror movie, Stiles doesn’t have the slightest. The normality of it helps ground him though, which he appreciates, even though he’s not going to say that. “Danny, you’re all about technology, right?” She throws the question out there almost flippantly.

 

What’s more surprising, though, is the hesitant way Danny says, “Um... I don’t know...”

 

“No. Wait, yes. Danny!” Stiles spins around to face the other boy. “That’s perfect. Danny.”

 

“Actually,” Laura interrupts. Unexpected, it’s makes Stiles startle, his head snapping back around. “We have a jenny--a generator, for emergencies. We’ve had some issues with it automatically switching over when the power goes out. Usually Derek...” Eyebrows sliding together, she looks around. “Wait, where’s Derek?”

 

“We sent him to the house to check on Jackson, our friend who...” Allison trails off with a small, vague motion of her fingers. Not that Stiles thinks he could have said it much better.

 

Now Laura looks genuinely concerned, like, for the first time worried for her own life concerned. “Wait. The house? The Hale house?”

 

Tentatively, Stiles answers with a soft, “Um, yeah,” because he doesn’t think this is leading anywhere good.

 

Laura’s eyes slide shut and the sigh that shudders out of her is heavy and long. “Oh no.” Her head is shaking. If head shaking could be ominous, hers would be. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

 

“I feel like I’m going to regret this, but no, not joking,” Stiles breaths. “Why? What’s wrong?”

 

“When I talked about the land, the Hales,” she pauses and glances between them all, and if she didn’t look so distraught Stiles would think she was doing it for dramatic effect, “the Hale family, Derek’s family, died in that house fire. Some drunken camper wandered up there one night and... it was a horrible incident. Derek he... he’s attached to the land. It’s his family’s land, which is why he works here, but he’s sensitive to having campers around. You can understand.” By the end her voice is low and hitches on that last sentence.

 

Stiles really wants to tell her that asking them to be understanding of emotionally traumatized groundskeepers being weird lurkers is one thing, but attempting to make pickaxe murders “understandable” isn’t something that’s likely to happen. Hell, it’s not even something that should happen.

 

“So, what, you’re saying Stiles’ burning desire for adventure that came to surface in the form of traipsing all around said house is the most likely the reason my boyfriend is dead and we’re all probably going to get murdered?” Her voice only trembles a little, quavers through the part about Jackson being dead and then flattens out. The combined effect is like a physical blow, makes the breath rush out of his lungs, his stomach knot and drop, his heart give a few hard, stuttering beats that make him think he might pass out.

 

It’s his fault.

 

Not that that’s something he can address right now. It’s a problem, a mental breakdown, that he can deal with later. Right now he needs to focus on how they’re going to get out of here, and that starts with getting the power back, getting the phones back, calling the police and then battening down the hatches and staying alive until people with badges and guns come to rescue them.

 

Denial is a whole lot easier to embrace when Danny breaks the heavy silence that’s quickly expanded through the space with, “I can probably figure it out.” Everybody’s attention turns to him, including Stiles’, because he’s kind of forgotten what the conversation was about before it turned into A Portrait of the Serial Killer/Creepy Groundsman as a Young(er) Man. Apparently everybody else has forgotten as well, because Danny lets out a breath, which is uncannily similar to a sigh, eyebrows raising as he adds, “Switching the power from the main lines to the jenny.”

 

“Oh, right, that.” Duh.

 

“It’s out back in an attached shed. We’ll have to go around the building,” Laura informs. Glancing around the group she says, “You guys should stay here and make sure everything’s locked up. There are flashlights in the trunk beside the fireplace you can use. Don’t go upstairs though. Upstairs is fine.”

 

Because he can’t help himself, even when facing impending torture and death at the hands of a tormented soul, Stiles asks, “What’s upstairs.”

 

“My living quarters, which I would like to keep camper free.” The way Laura says it though makes it sound more like she’s worried Scott and Stiles will raid her underwear drawer while giggling like little school boys. She’s wrong.

 

Well, okay, she’s not wrong, but they wouldn’t do that now, not with impending threatening death hanging over their heads and all. Definitely not with Allison and Lydia around. Without those things though? Yeah, they would totally do that.

 

“We won’t go upstairs,” Allison assures, but too much time has passed with Stiles clearly not being the one to come up with that answer, and Laura’s eyes narrow critically. It’s like a physical force pushing into Stiles’ brain.

 

“Alright,” is what she says, but Stiles is pretty sure what he actually hears is, ‘You better not,’ in a very low, very threatening voice. Laura has gone from weird to normal to uncomfortable fairly quickly. Emotional whiplash is a thing, Stiles knows because he’s felt it before. He’s not sure, however, whether or not you can get it from someone else. Probably. This is probably even what it feels like.

 

Laura walks out into the night first and Danny follows her with a final, “This shouldn’t take long, but lock the door behind us.”

 

“Oh, don’t worry, we will.” They do. As soon as they close the door.

 

The windows in the main room are all locked and when they wander down the connecting hall to check in on Laura’s office, the kitchen, and the dining room, Stiles is wholly unsurprised to find himself alone at the bottom of a stairway leading up. He flickers his flashlight up the steps quickly, as though only a brief glance will make the urge weaker. It doesn’t. He settles the beam up the stairs, finds it blocked by a door at the top, and considers.

 

Taking a moment, he glances down the hall, back in the direction he’d come from, finds it empty, and debates for half a second before taking four quick steps up the stairs. After that it’s like he would be insulting the universe if he didn’t continue up the rest of the way. Besides, Laura might have left a window open upstairs and Stiles has seen enough horror movies and has enough disaster plans in mind to know that he is not stupid enough to be the person who lets something sneak into the building he’s hiding in through another level.

 

Pushing through the door at the top of the stairs Stiles finds himself in a small kitchen that opens up to an equally small but cozy living space. Or, at least, it would be cozy, if it weren’t pitch black and looking utterly creepy and like a fine place to murderize someone. For a moment Stiles second guesses his conviction about upstairs windows, wonders if he should try to grab one of the others, and then takes a breath and mans up.

 

He’s very business about the whole thing, moves around from window to window, checking the locks and ignoring everything else, which is easier to do than normal because he can’t see anything that his flashlight doesn’t land on. It’s on his way back out that things get a little hairy. He’s turning to go back to the stairs when the beam of his flashlight reflects off of glass, a photo hanging on the wall, the only photo he’s come across, and he moves forward, too curious not to.

 

It’s a large photo of a mass of people in front of a not-quite-mansion set to a backdrop of trees. The house looks familiar, after a second, and he realizes it’s because he was just there. The Hale house.

 

Stomach shrinking, Stiles re-adjusts the light and leans forward to get a better look. It’s a family, eight people. After some inspection he identifies Derek, some ten years younger, and next to him is a girl who, despite the age difference, looks awfully familiar.

 

Reeling back from the photo Stiles almost trips over his own feet and falls. Just barely managing to keep his feet under him, he spins around and bolts down the stairs. “Scott! Allison! Lydia! _Guys_!” Halfway down the hall they all rush out, eyes wide with panic.

 

“What is it? Stiles? What’s going on?”

 

His heart is hammering in his chest, the sudden fright having caught his breath so now he’s gasping. “It’s- It’s Laura. She’s a Hale.”

 

Scott’s face twists with confusion. “What? What do you mean? How do you know that?” Even as he asks his features start to untwist. “Wait a minute. No, please don’t say-”

 

“I went upstairs and there was a photo and- It doesn’t matter. Laura is a Hale. What if _she’s_ the creeper sibling with camper issues, and we just locked Danny outside with her!”

 

“Oh no.”

 

x.x.x.x.x.

 

The shed is around the far side of the lodge, a lean-to really, not even a decent shed. The door is open and Stiles really, really doesn’t want to go in there, because while it is small it is just big enough for two people (a serial killer and a victim) and the body of said serial killer’s first victim.

 

Sensing the hesitation, Allison moves forward. “I’ll check.”

 

To which Scott jumps forward, bodily pulling her back. “No. I’ll do it.”

 

Before he can, Stiles moves forward, because he is not losing Scott. That’s not a thing that’s happening. Scott and him are going to die old men together. He’s very strategically planned how they will be the hilariously weird yet so loveable old men of their neighborhood together, and granny Allison will bake pies and yell at them for terrorizing the grandchildren.

 

“If she’s in there and kraken style drags me in and kills me,” Stiles mutters sourly as he inches closer to the gaping, black hole of shed’s doorway, “please lock her in and then burn it down around her.” Nobody responds and he tosses a glare over his shoulder toward Scott.

 

“Sure Stiles.”

 

It’s not very convincing, but Stiles will take what he can get. Turning back toward the shed, he takes a deep breath and steps in. There’s no dramatic sweep of his flashlight. The shed is small enough that it illuminates easily, quickly revealing Danny’s body, thrown over the jenny on the ground, three ice picks smashed through his back, pinning him to the little machine that is now definitely broken.

 

Stiles can’t help but close his eyes against the scene and stumble back out, shaking his head. Whether it’s in denial or the attempt to dislodge the image, he’s not sure. Either. Both.

 

“Stiles?” There are hands on his shoulders, Scott’s, steadying him. “What’d you see?”

 

Before he can answer Allison says, “Danny,” the tone of her voice enough to enlighten Scott and Lydia.

 

Taking a shaky breath, Stiles opens his eyes. Swallowing down hysterics he says, “We need to get out of here,” and is supremely pleased with how steady his voice is. “We’ll get the keys to the jeep and we’re just going to drive ourselves to town. Okay? That’s- that’s what we need to do.”

 

In front of him Scott is nodding eagerly.

 

x.x.x.x.

 

Stiles’ hands are shaking.  He’s not cold, but the flashlight in front of him is wavering along the path.  Shock is a kind of cold, his mind settles on.  Lydia, Scott and Allison are behind him with their own flashlights as they make their way down to the parked cars.  His jeep is still at a jaunty angle, Stiles can see the rear bumper reflecting off the glare from the flashlights, and guilt sits heavy in his stomach.  What seemed hilarious but harmless a little over twenty-four hours ago is now one of the last moments he spent with two people he loves -- loved -- for better or for worse. 

 

He wishes.  He wishes.  Stiles holds tightly to the rabbit’s foot in his pocket and wonders if it was a warning he had missed.

 

He doesn’t know what he wishes, but his free hand reaches behind him and touches the sleeve of Scott’s sweater to reassure himself that he’s there.

 

Two tragedies in one night seems so excessive, but the fact that there is someone out there killing people he loves makes something flicker to life inside him, some rage that isn’t helpless in the least. 

 

He will die to protect these people.  That’s no secret.  He’s been telling Scott that since they were kids.  He’s not sure he’s ever told Allison, but he thinks she knows, just like he thinks she would do the same for him and Scott.

 

The secret is what he will do to the person who hurts his friends.  The sick knowledge of the lengths he will take rolls just under his skin, almost comforting, an armour against thinking about what has happened and instead focusing on what will.

 

They will make it out of here alive.

 

The four of them reach the vehicles.  His keys may have been missing from his cabin, but that doesn’t mean he is entirely without a plan.  He opens the front door and climbs in, contorting his body around the front seat so he can reach the bench in the back.  He feels beneath the padding until he feels a small rent in the material and pulls out a spare key.

 

“Are you guys ready to get out of here?” he asks them, brandishing the key.

 

“That won’t work,” Lydia tells him from the front of the jeep, gesturing to the hood.  It lifts easily in her hand and she sticks her head under it for a second.  “The spark plugs are missing.”

 

Stiles slams his hand against the steering wheel in disbelief.  They were so close to getting out of here. 

 

Plan B it is then, he decides, jumping out of the jeep and using the key to open the back hatch.  He grabs a tire iron out of the kit, wishing he was a little more zombie-prepared with a loaded shotgun.

 

“Stiles,” Allison warns, a gentle hand on his arm, but they all can’t be equipped with a bow and arrow like she is.

 

He bares his teeth at her, a facsimile of a smile.  “It’s ok,” he tries for reassuring.  “Nothing else is going to happen.  I’m armed now.”

 

Luck has nothing on preparedness.

 

x.x.x.x.x.

 

Weapons can’t always protect against violence.  That’s something he should have picked up from his father years ago.

 

“Ack!” Scott squawks, tripping and falling forward without notice.  He hits a steep embankment and starts rolling with a sound that’s between an indignant call of shock and a squeak of amusement.

 

“Holy Shit!” Stiles fumbles forward, grabbing for Scott’s back despite the fact it’s out of reach.  The tripwire Scott triggered presses sharply against his ankle.

 

Allison is already running down the hill after Scott, laughing softly at his clumsiness.  Stiles laughs too, a moment’s reprieve from death.

 

Then Scott stops with a sickening crunch as his head slams against a rock.

 

Allison screams, dropping her bow as she rushes towards him.

 

Stiles’ fingers grope in his pocket for the rabbit’s foot, thumb pressing in the indent right above the toes, the space where the fur has worn away from multiple moments just like this one, from someone else’s thumb.  He clings to it as he runs down the embankment after Allison, chanting ‘please, please, please’ in his mind because tonight has seen far, far too much tragedy, and he needs this.  He needs Scott.

 

To be ok.

 

“I can’t,” Allison is saying, pressing her fingers against Scott’s neck.  “I’m not...” she rips open the front of his sweater, pressing her ear against his chest through the thin cotton of the tshirt beneath.  “Scott.  Scott.”  Her hands shake his shoulders, and she’s breathing heavily.  “Scott, no, no, no,” she murmurs against his chest and then turns her face towards Stiles and Lydia, utterly hopeless.

 

Stiles drops to his knees, shuffling forward towards his friend.  “Scott,” Stiles tries reproachfully, as though Scott is joking.

 

Allison gathers the still body closer towards her, protectively, as though Stiles’ disbelief is a threat to them both.

 

“Scott?” Stiles asks heavily, reaching forward, but he can’t quite make himself touch his friend.

 

Not Scott. Not, not.

 

Objectively he can see the blood seeping over the back of the rock the head rests on.  He can see the way it dyes Allison’s hands, sticky and wet as she pulls at the hoodie, leaving finger prints along the shoulders.  But it doesn’t mean anything to his mind.  There’s just static.

 

This should be the moment he takes a panic attack, but he’s eerily calm staring down at S...

 

No.

 

With every blink that Stiles takes, he can feel that he’s crying, tears running down his face and dripping off his chin, but he feels nothing but blinding rage at the sight of Scott’s body lying crumpled on the ground.   His limbs vibrate as his fingers curve into the warm metal of his crowbar so tightly the edges cut into his palm and he stumbles to his feet, allowing the physical pain to keep him grounded.  He takes a step forward, aware that someone is calling his name behind him, but mind not registering the sound.

 

Scott.

 

No.

 

Stiles is running.  Away.  Forward.  He isn’t sure, only that his feet are rapidly putting distance between himself and ...his friends.  He bursts back into the center of camp, breathing hard, heart pounding.

 

Derek looks up at him, startled.

 

Stiles is in motion, moving in on Derek with a purpose he can’t quite understand.  His head is still buzzing, empty of thought and working on instincts.

 

“Are you doing this?” he asks Derek, voice deceptively calm, fingers tightening on the crowbar still in his fingers.  

 

Derek stares at him. 

 

Stiles whips the crowbar forward, pressing the flat edge of it against Derek’s throat as he throws both of them against the side of the building.  They hit with a volt, Derek’s back scraping against the roughly hewn tiles.  “Are you murdering my friends?” Stiles asks him again, teeth barred as he presses the crowbar tighter against Derek’s throat until he’s choking for breath.

 

Someone is calling his name again, but it’s inconsequential.  Stiles ignores that too, relishing every sharp puff of warm air Derek gasps on his cheek as his hands scramble against Stiles’.  Like this they’re on eye level, and there is a small part of him, the part that remains through Sc... that relishes the widening of Derek’s eyes as he fights against him.

 

“Scott...” Stiles starts, but he still can’t entirely face the thought.  A bit of truth trickles through, and he eases back on his grip on the crowbar.  Derek takes that moment and brings his arm up, wrenching the crowbar away from his skin and spinning them both around so Stiles is the one slammed back against the building. 

 

“Scott...” Stiles starts again, and this time his voice breaks, because each time he says the name, he almost expects to hear an answering “yeah, dude?”

 

“Oh my god, Scott,” Stiles whimpers, it finally sinking in.  He chokes on air trying to inhale, a wretched sobbing sound.

 

Derek is looking at him now and his face is twisting into some bare emotion Stiles can’t recognise.  He leans forward and presses his forehead against Stiles’, gently twisting the crowbar out of his numb fingers.

 

“No,” Stiles says.  The word is small, but contradictory to its meaning. 

 

Acceptance. 

 

Stiles slides down the wall, uncaring about the rough wood at his back until he’s sitting, legs splayed in front of him as though they’re made of jelly.  Derek lets him go and steps back, receding back into the shadows.  Stiles chokes on his sobs again, swallowing convulsively as he inhales once, twice, a third time until he can look up at Lydia and Allison.

 

He feels broken.

 

Allison’s hands are clasped over her mouth, her eyes rimmed red and unable to look directly at him.  Lydia is watching him with her head cocked, as though his grief makes him the most fascinating of subjects, and in that moment he hates her more than anything.

 

“You could have killed him.” She’s curious.  “Why didn’t you?”

 

Stiles scrubs his hands over his face.  They come away wet, and he’s reminded of the blood on Allison’s hands.  His tears won’t leave stains anywhere, but that doesn’t make them any less real.  Stiles clears his throat and grabs the threads of his fury.  “I’m,” his voice breaks, and he clears his throat, thick with viscous and grief.  “I’m not 100% sure it’s him.  We still don’t know where Laura is.  Do you have your bow?” he addresses Allison.

 

She nods, holding it up.

 

“Good.  We’re going hunting.”  He regains his footing, hand braced against the jagged building side.  He can feel it under his palm now, recognises his senses returning as control over his emotions.  “There isn’t some safe haven like in the movies.  We’re not waiting for the police to arrive by daybreak, or for the phone lines to come back up.  We’re just waiting to die, and I’m not just standing here while that happens.  I will not be the victim,” Stiles finishes passionately.  “When I find who is doing this to us, I _will_ kill them.”

 

As he’s retrieving the crowbar, Allison and Lydia exchange a look behind his back.

 

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” Allison says to Lydia. 

 

x.x.x.x.

 

Vetoing the girls’ opinions, Stiles decides they need to make their way back to the Hale house. If the burned up crust of a home is the instigator of whichever murderous Hale--and that’s assuming both of them haven’t jumped off the serial killer deep end, which is too terrifying a thought for him to tackle, so he’s ignoring it--then going back there should get the killer’s attention, and with that knowledge they should be able to lay some kind of trap. It’s better than locking themselves back up in the dark lodge and waiting, because there’s nothing to wait for.

 

Despite being against the plan, Allison has taken the lead, mainly because she’s the one with the bow and arrows and can shoot anything to death they may come across, and Stiles is taking up the rear, because he has a crowbar, he’s not afraid to use it, and he’s not going to let himself be in the middle of some power-girl sandwich, no matter how appealing that actually sounds.

 

Something rustles out in the blackness around them and they halt, the motion near synchronized. He cocks his head, straining his ears for a repeat, but it doesn’t come. Silence.

 

Rustle.

 

“Wait here,” is a whispered order from Allison before she goes darting into the trees before Stiles has the chance to even open his mouth and tell her that there is no way on God’s green Earth that they are doing something as stupid as splitting up. She’s gone though, dissolved into the blackness and Stiles is just now opening his mouth.

 

He settles with, “That was so stupid,” before grabbing Lydia’s wrist and dragging her along as the follows in the direction Allison went.

 

It isn’t long before they stumble across her.

 

Allison is lying on the ground, her bow angled around her neck.  Lydia cries out in horror, dropping to her knees beside her best friend. 

 

Two things strike him at once.

 

One: Allison would never die before him, not while armed.  He can see certain conditions this might happen, such as a gunshot wound or anything from a distance, but Allison’s dad put her into self-defense lessons while other girls were in ballet, and he doesn’t know anyone who is better at defending themselves.  No one would get the jump on her and kill her using her own weapon.  At least, not without there being some serious defensive wounds on her hands, and while her fingernails are still tacky with Scott’s blood, all of them are still intact.

 

Two: Not once in the entire evening has he been the one to check the body for a pulse.  There has always been someone there first to do it instead.  He hadn’t noticed at first, but now it seems a little too coincidental, and his father’s favourite saying jumps in his mind.  The entire evening is almost too over the top, and it rings false to him.

 

His face skews in fury, so intense it leaves bile in his throat, and he has to turn away from the scene in front of him.

 

“Stiles!” Lydia calls out, misinterpreting the action.  “Don’t do anything foolish.”

 

He wants to yell at her, maybe unfairly, because she’s the only one left.  Now that he sees it, his brain is quickly reassessing every moment of the last two days, every moment the camping trip was mentioned before that, finding clues he should have seen the moment they arrived.  Closer to Halloween, this would have been obvious, and even that feels deliberate on his friends’ parts.

 

The fact no one complained about how decrepit and rustic the campgrounds is.

 

The actual state of the campground. The burned sign.  The weeds overrunning the paths.  The Hale House. Creepy Groundskeeper.

 

The fact that his friends conveniently disappeared during instances -- he can see upon reflection -- that were supposed to frighten him if he wasn’t so blinded by Derek’s face and abs.

 

Laura’s maniacal laughter, her ghost stories, her cryptic warnings and the resulting revelations.

 

It was all fake, fake, fakety fake fake.

 

And he’s pissed.  So, so incredibly angry that he burns with it, because it’s better than feeling betrayed, and realizing that the people he loves the most in the world, his family without blood, have _deliberately done this to him for fun_.

 

He wants revenge.  He wants to give them a small taste of what they did to him.

 

They are all going to owe him so hard for this.

 

“Leave her,” he says coldly to Lydia. 

 

They’ve hardly moved a dozen feet when Stiles almost literally runs into a shovel sticking out of the ground.  He knows what the scene looks like.  It looks like Allison interrupted someone digging a grave, and they killed her.  The question is, which Hale is supposed to be the one who is the killer?  Obviously, it looks like it should be Laura.  The timing just fits, which means Derek is probably the one who did it.

 

He can’t see them planning a very complex murder mystery scenario.  They’re not the writers of Sherlock or anything.

 

Stiles looks into the grave.

 

His startled jump is actually real because he didn’t expect there to be an actual body in there.  “We’ve found Laura,” he tells Lydia, pulling the shovel out of the ground.  A few small mounds of dirt fall on top of the ‘body’ and Stiles smirks as he digs the shovel into the pile of dug-up earth beside him.  Let them panic a bit, he thinks as he drops a shovelful of dirt on top of Laura.

 

“What are you doing?” Lydia asks him as he scoops up more dirt.

 

“Finishing the job,” he tells her.  “It just seems right.”

 

“What?”  Lydia actually looks uncertain for once.  “No, we don’t have time.  Just come on.  We’ll get to the lodge and barricade ourselves in.”

 

“The lodge?” Stiles asks.  “I think we should go back to the cars and lock ourselves in the jeep.”

 

“No, the lodge.  Maybe we can find one of those emergency radios.”

 

“Ok,” Stiles follows her, but keeps the shovel.  The lodge is key.  That’s probably where this is going to end.  The final showdown in the lodge.

 

Now that he sees it, could this be any more of a terrible movie scenario?  He would have stopped watching an hour ago, like those made for TV movies filmed in Canada where the big baddie is a moose or a grizzly bear or something.  It’s that bad, that obvious.

 

How had he not noticed how wooden Lydia’s behaviour was.  He had been putting it down to shock, to grief at Jackson’s death, but now that he was looking, he can see impatience there and a kind of wariness, like she’s figured out how monumental of a terrible idea this was, even worse than she thought it would be.

 

He reassesses this when Derek steps out of the shadows and advances on them. 

 

The lodge isn’t key, then, but he’s still right.

 

Stiles is pretty sure that how this is going to end is Derek gets Lydia, and then Stiles runs for his life into the lodge, where all his friends are waiting to greet him like some kind of supremely fucked up surprise birthday party.

 

He’s like 88% sure.

 

“Hey Derek!” he waves, showing off the shovel a bit.  “I just finished burying your sister for you.  Packed the ground down really well, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, right?  To make sure wild animals like wolves don’t get at the meat?  Tough luck, losing a relative.  Though, I suppose I’m supposed to believe you killed her, so maybe not tough luck after all.”

 

Derek pauses, eyes widening as his head whips towards where they found Laura.

 

And heh, if that’s not proof of guilt or some kind of knowledge, Stiles doesn’t know what is.  His father would be so proud.  So proud.

 

“You’re lying,” Derek finally says.

 

“Am I?” Stiles asks.  “I’m so glad you understand the difference between truth or lie.  Let me try now: Did you kill my friends?”

 

“Of course he did Stiles! He’s the only one left who could have.”

 

Derek looks him in the eye but doesn’t say anything.

 

Stiles steps forward, shovel raised.  “Ok, let me try this again. I will hit you over the head with this shovel if I don’t like the answer this time.  Are they dead because of you?  Or is this all some kind of sick game?”

 

Derek’s face actually crumples in relief.

 

Stiles almost backs away from him in surprise, because he wasn’t expecting that.

 

“Of course this is a sick game, the man is obviously demented.  Finish it.”

 

“Lydia, I know this whole thing is fake.”  He looks at her.  She simply lifts her chin and dares him to prove it with her eyes.  “I will hit him with this shovel if you don’t admit it.”

 

She actually flips her hair, looks him in the eye, and says: “Admit what?”

 

Playing chicken with Lydia is an exercise in futility, because once she decides on an outcome, that will be the outcome no matter what. 

 

Too bad Stiles is equally as stubborn.  He mentally apologizes to Derek as he brings the shovel down on Derek’s head.

 

It lands harder than he meant to because in the time Stiles and Lydia were having a silent competition of dares, Derek shifted closer to Stiles and what was supposed to be a glancing blow knocks Derek to the ground.

 

And he’s bleeding.

 

Pretty badly.

 

Really badly.

 

“WHAT DID YOU DO?” Lydia yells reproachfully, flinging herself at Derek with her cardigan balled in her hands.  Derek doesn’t even flinch as she presses against the wound on his head.

 

Stiles takes a moment to celebrate the fact he was right.

 

Ha, Lydia, this is a case of rock meeting an immovable object and the rock winning!

 

Then he feels horrible, because he might have actually killed Derek.  He kind of liked Derek, too.

 

“He’s not dead,” Lydia answers him scathingly.  “Go get the first aid kit in the lodge.”

 

Stiles bursts into the lodge, arms flailing for balance, and almost bodily runs into Danny.  Everyone jumps to their feet with varying degrees of enthousiastic grins as they yell “SURPRISE” at him.

 

He’d actually be pleased he called that one right too, if it wasn’t for the hot, hot man becoming colder by the moment from loss of blood just outside.

 

“I need the first aid kit!” he yells as he rushes past them.

 

“It’s fake,” Jackson points out, like Stiles is the slowest person on the face of the earth.

 

“No it’s not!” he calls back, because really Jackson?

 

“We’re all fine,” Scott reassures him as Stiles dives across the desk in the office, paperwork going everywhere, so he can grab the first aid kit strapped to the wall.  Honestly, for a murder camp, you’d think the emergency supplies would be in better reach.  “Lydia is fine.  You’re freaking out for no reason.”

 

“Does he think we’re ghosts?” he hears Jackson whisper to Danny.

 

_Really Jackson?_

 

“I’m not freaking out for no reason!” Stiles grunts as he manages to yank the box towards him with a full-body shudder.  “BECAUSE I JUST KILLED DEREK!”

 

The four of them go still as Stiles rushes back out the door. 

 

**_Surprise._ **

 

By the time he gets outside, Laura is with Derek, holding his head between her hands.  “I knew this would happen someday,” she tells him reprovingly, all sisterly affection and I told you so’s.  “Give me that.”

 

She tears the first aid kit out of his hands.  “You,” she points at Danny.  “Go get your keys and start your car. And you,” she points to Jackson, “are going to help me move this stupid chump down to the parking lot so we can take him to the hospital.”

 

Stiles stands there and watches it all as they get Derek into the SUV.  He stays as the rest of his friends filter back into the lodge, until the taillights disappear into the darkness.

 

Derek still hasn’t woken up.

 

x.x.x.x.x.

 

“WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?” he yells as they reenter the lodge. They’re all sitting around waiting for him, a pizza cooling on the table among half-eaten snacks. “Did you think this was going to be some kind of treat?  Oh! I know what we can gift Stiles, the pleasure of having all of his friends die horrible deaths around him. Then he’ll really appreciate us.”

 

Scott looks abashed.  “You were supposed to treat this like Sherlock Holmes!  Not Kill Bill Volume One.”

 

“So I was supposed to solve the case?”

 

Scott nods.

 

“And this was your idea?”

 

Scott nods a little more enthusiastically, as though he thinks Stiles is finally seeing it.

 

“Scott,” Allison kicks his ankle.  “We all thought it would be fun.  A real murder mystery for you to solve.  We know how bored you’ve been since figuring out how Sherlock survived Reichenbach Fall.”

 

“But then you started freaking out.  I thought I was actually going to cry when you started crying when I died, and I realized that for you this wasn’t a game.  I’m so, so sorry.  I don’t know what I would do if you died in front of me.  I don’t think I’d be able to move for hours.”

 

Stiles deflates, because who can stay angry with Scott in the face of his puppy eyes. ”I should have known.” He doesn’t blame himself, exactly, but it still stings a little that it took him so long to see.  “I should have known it was fake when the Creepy Hot Groundskeeper started flirting with me.”

 

“Oh no,” Lydia says, feigning complete disinterest as she files her nails. She had _actual_ blood beneath them, unlike the rest, and she looks the least concerned. “You should see the things he was supposed to do, but didn’t, or he did do them, and instead of being duly cowed, you call him over and ask if he was hurt while _covered in blood,_ ” she rummages through her bag one-handed and draws out a sheet of paper, thrusting it towards him.  “Most importantly of his tasks, remain nameless.”

 

Seeing it all written out in black and white doesn’t help Stiles at all, and he ends up excusing himself to go to bed.  After facing down murderers, the fear of cougars isn’t all that terrifying.  He can just hit them with a shovel or something.

 

“But dude, we have pizza,” Scott reminds him.

 

Stiles really doesn’t care what they have.  Nothing is going to stop him from sleeping the remaining hours of this day away.

 

At first, Stiles assumes the tapping on his window is rain.  It wouldn’t surprise him if, to top the whole vacation off, it poured on the drive home.  Instead, the tapping becomes impatient, frenetic, until easing off.  If rain was sentient he would say it sounded uncertain and apologetic.

 

Not rain, then.  Probably one of his friends coming to apologize again.  Stiles knows he’s going to forgive them.  He might spend some time thinking of humiliating ways to phrase the Best Man’s speech he will someday have to write for Scott, retribution a dish best served tepid and with a bit of foreshadowing, but he will forgive them eventually.

 

By eventually, probably on the car ride home, but he’ll let them think he’s still stewing for a few weeks.  He deserves someone picking up his supper bills for a while, at least, for bringing him to murder camp. Forgiving isn't the same as forgetting. He's not sure he'll forget this any time soon.

 

Finally, not able to take it anymore, he throws open the window beside him, surprised to find Derek on the other side.  The night air is chilly against his bare arms, goosebumps forming on his skin as he leans against the window pane and to observe Derek with a careful, critical gaze.

 

“How’s your head?” he finally asks.

 

“I didn't think you'd actually do it.”

 

Stiles feels guilty for a moment before he notices Derek is giving him a wry smile.

 

“Laura and I have been running this camp for a few years now, and this is the first time I’ve ended up with stitches.  There was always the chance that someone would actually manage to hit me, but I never thought it would be while they actually knew the whole thing was fake.”

 

Stiles shrugs.  “You don't know me very well.” He thinks about Derek watching him in the firelight.  He thinks about the rabbit’s foot still in his pocket, and the exhaustion evident around Derek’s eyes even as he talks to him through the window, and he thinks that maybe, maybe this part has actually been real.  “Yet,” he tacks on the end, an olive branch that makes Derek’s eyes light up.

 

“I'm not really that... creepy.”  Derek says this like it might be a deterrent for him, like the reason he’s attracted to Derek is because he makes his pulse skitter in a threatening way.  Like Stiles _likes_ creepy.

 

Stiles laughs.  “Oh dude, I’ve seen the real itinerary, and I know what actions you were supposed to take and when, and believe me, you're the creepiest without trying.  We’re having this conversation at my window in the middle of the night, and last night you stood in that exact spot and it wasn’t on anyone’s list of things you were going to do, and that should be unpleasant, but it’s not.”

 

“It should be.”  Derek looks like he’s debating whether or not he should tell Stiles to run away from him as far as he can.

 

“It’s not like creepy is one of the things I look for in a person, because honestly I still find your sister weirder than you are.  It’s just, you’re... you were supposed to be scaring me, and you kept trying to protect me.  You gave me a rabbit’s foot for luck because you knew I would need it, and you never outright lied, even when it would have been easier.  And I was really staring at your abs every time your shirt was off. I think we'll be fine.” Stiles confides with growing confidence.

 

“Yes. I...” Derek casts around for an equivalent that Stiles hasn’t mentioned. “I actually watched you in the shower.”

 

Stiles pauses and then laughs, amazed and open-mouthed, with his whole body shaking.  “That's the creepiest thing you've said to me yet.” He winks.

 

“Yeah?” Derek sounds pleased.

 

“Yeah,” Stiles grins, leaning across the windowsill and kissing Derek.  He’s actually exhausted and a little freezing, so it isn’t a kiss that magically solves all his problems, but it’s solid and warm and real, and Stiles feels his pulse skitter as Derek’s fingers brush against his neck.  “Goodnight,” he says softly, pulling away after a moment and closing the window.

 

x.x.x.x.

 

The next morning Derek isn’t around for breakfast, and Stiles tries to tell himself that if he had a gaping head wound, he would still be sleeping too, kiss or no kiss.

 

They repack the car and still no Derek.  Laura levels him with an assessing gaze as they shake hands, murmuring, “you were unexpected, kid.”

 

He’s not sure how to take that.

 

They’re getting ready to drive away when Stiles realizes he can’t leave without finding out where he stands with Derek.  He gets out of the jeep and resolves not to leave, even if he has to find out where Derek sleeps, track him down, and hit him over the head with another shovel to make him wake up.

 

Stiles finds Derek sitting on the closed porch in the lodge, watching him walk up the front path.  “I thought you might like my cell phone number,” Stiles says.  Everything felt so much easier in the middle of the night, as though the darkness allowed him to face his fears head on.  Maybe he just had enough of being scared, but now that it was daytime again, simply approaching Derek seemed like one of the harder things he ever did.  “I mean, you might not be able to text, but you have access to a phone, don’t you?”

 

“I know how to text,” Derek scowls at him, taking the phone number and putting it in the pocket of a truly indecently tight pair of jeans. He has one leg braced against the porch railing, thigh muscles casually on display, and Stiles thinks back to the kiss they shared the night before and hopes that there will be a day when he can slip his leg between Derek’s and stand close enough to him to feel all that powerful body against his. 

 

Today is not that day.

 

“Then text me,” Stiles says, almost contrarily.  “I really like you, and I think if I still like you after the last twenty-four hours that this might be something worth exploring.  So maybe I can come up some weekend to visit?  I’m not inviting myself or anything, just if you want...”

 

Derek is watching him, and inscrutable expression on his face.

 

“Blink once for yes and two for no.”

 

Derek focuses on him and doesn’t blink.

 

Ok then.

 

“You think I live here?” Derek finally blurts out, amusement making his lips curve into a smile that would almost be charming if he wasn’t kind of mocking Stiles.

 

“Well, I think you live somewhere,” Stiles snarks.  “I half expected it to be that burned down house in the woods.”

 

“Stiles!” Scott calls from down the walkway.  “Don’t think we can’t see that you’re just standing there talking to the Creepy Groundskeeper!”

 

“I’ll text you,” Derek promises.

 

“Why does that sound like a brush off?” Stiles asks, crossing his arms over his chest.

 

“STIIIIIIIIIIILES!”

 

“Your friends are calling you.” Derek definitely looks amused now, and a little mysterious, like he knows something Stiles doesn’t.

 

“Yeah, well, they’re still in the doghouse, I think I have material to milk this steadily for about a month.”  May as well go for broke.  “Don’t lead me on if you’re not interested.  Just say goodbye and I won’t go home with my hopes up.”

 

“I’ll text.  Or email, since you seem to have given me everything but your home address.” Derek gets to his feet so they’re on equal level.  “Believe me, I wouldn’t want to get on your bad side when I know you carry a crowbar around in your car.”  His hand reaches out, snagging the edge of Stiles’ plaid shirt, drawing him forward until Derek’s mouth is on his, warm and steady, just a quick press of lips that promises something more in the future.

 

Fuck. That. Stiles thinks, wrapping his arms around Derek’s back and pulling him closer, opening his mouth and drawing Derek’s bottom lip between his teeth.  Derek backs him up against the screen enclosure of the porch, his hands heavy against Stiles’ hips as their mouths slide together in a lazy battle of dominance. 

 

“Are your hopes up yet?” Derek huffs in amusement once he pulls away.

**Author's Note:**

> It was supposed to be a surprise, but RLNerdGirl and I DO have a sequel planned. Yes, his friends are horrible, but everyone knows you don't anger Stiles Stilinski.


End file.
